iMWiiPt' 


-6  7 


^-v 


'/6e 


He.       l-lfl)l>      i>T,      ;4 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/atheisminphilosoOOhedgrich 


Atheism  in  Philosophy, 


AND 


OTHER     ESSAYS. 


BY 


FREDERIC  HENRY   HEDGE, 

AUTHOR    OF 
^  '*  REASON     IN    RELIGION,"      "  PRIMEVAL    WORLD    OF    HEBREW    TRADITION,'' 

"ways    of   the    SPIRIT,"    ETC. 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


Copyright,  1884, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


JSniticrsitB  Presg: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


PHILOSOPHIC   ATHEISM. 

Paqe 

Introduction 3 

Epicurus 5 

The  Philosophy  of  Epicurus 24 

Arthur  Schopenhauer 51 

Schopenhauer's  Philosophy 70 

Critique   of    Pessimism    as    taught   by   Eduard 

VON  Hartmann 123 

MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

Life  and  Character  of  Augustine 145 

Gottfried  Wilhelm  von  Leibniz 195 

Leibniz's  Philosophy 217 

The  Monadology  of  Leibniz 245 

Immanuel  Kant 271 

Irony 306 

The  Philosophy  of  Fetichism 337 

Genius 354 

The  Lords  of  Life 376 


PHILOSOPHIC   ATHEISM. 


"Philosophy,  Socrates,  if  pursued  in  moderation  and  at  the 
proper  age,  is  an  elegant  accomplishment ;  but  too  much  philo- 
sophy is  the  ruin  of  human  life." —  Callicles,  i7i  Plato  s  Gorgias. 


PHILOSOPHIC   atheism; 


INTRODUCTION. 

"DY  philosophic  atheism  I  mean  speculative 
■■-^  denial  of  a  supermundane,  conscious  intel- 
ligence, —  theories  of  the  universe  which  regard 
it  as  the  product  of  blind  force,  or  as  a  self- 
subsisting,  self-governing,  independent  being.  Of 
these  theories,  however  repugnant  to  practical 
reason  and  religious  faith,  we  are  not  authorized 
to- say  with  Milton, — 

"  Of  such  doctrine  never  was  there  school 
But  the  heart  of  the  fool, 
And  no  man  therein  doctor  but  himself."  2 

Justice  compels  us  to  admit  the  claim  of  some 
who  have  reasoned  thus,  to  be  counted  philoso- 
phers,—  lovers  of  wisdom,  seekers  of  truth. 

1  Not  to  be  confounded  with  the  scientific  atheism  of  the  Posi- 
tivists. 

2  Samson  Agonistes,  297-299. 


4  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

The  moment  we  begin  to  speculate  about  the 
universe,  there  arises  the  question  of  origin.  Phi- 
losophy, even  atheistic  philosophy,  cannot  stop 
short  of  the  "  primordia  rerum ; "  it  wants  to 
know  ''  unde  Natura  creet  res,  auctet  alatque." 
The  arch-atheist  of  antiquity  could  not  rest  in  a 
given  phenomenal  world,  but  pushed  his  inquiry, 
says  his  great  commentator,^  "  extra  flammantia 
moenia  mundi."  The  question  Whence  ?  is  found 
to  be  involved  in  the  questions  What  ?  and  How  ? 
And  here  it  is  that  philosophic  atheists  differ 
among  themselves  almost  as  widely  as  they  dif- 
fer from  theists.  I  select  as  illustrations  two 
prominent  examples,  an  ancient  and  a  modern, 
representing  two  opposite  types,  —  Epicurus  and 
Schopenhauer. 

1  Lucretius :  De  Rerum  Natura,  i.  73,  74. 


EPICURUS. 


EPICURUS. 


'T^HERE  are  few  philosophers,  and  indeed  few 
-■-  men,  about  whom  such  opposite  opinions 
have  been  formed  and  such  different  judgments  pro- 
nounced as  those  concerning  Epicurus.  To  speak 
of  him  as  an  atheist  at  all,  in  the  view  of  some, 
is  to  misrepresent  him.  There  have  not  been 
wanting  defenders  of  his  philosophy  who  acquit 
it  of  that  charge,  and  have  even  sought  to  adjust 
its  principles  with  Christian  doctrine.  Prominent 
among  them  is  Gassendi,  who  published  toward 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  an  elaborate 
account  of  Epicurus,  entitled  "  De  vita,  moribus, 
et  philosophia  Epicuri ; "  to  which  he  afterward 
added  "  Animadversiones  in  Diogenem  Laertium," 
the  biographer  of  Epicurus,  and  also  a  "  Synta- 
gma philosophias  Epicuri."  Among  ancient  critics, 
his  best  advocate  was  a  leader  of  the  sect  most 
opposed  to  his  own,  —  the  Stoic  Seneca. 

I  call  him  an  atheist  in  philosophy ;  for  though 
he  recognizes  the  existence  of  the  national  gods, 
it  is  only  as  accidents,  not  as  powers.  He  recog- 
nizes no  divine  agency  in  his  system.  His  gods 
have  no  right  to  be,  in  the  light  of  his  philosophy. 
They  have  none  of  the  attributes  proper  to  deity; 


Y 


6  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

they  are  chance  collections  of  atoms,  destined 
sooner  or  later,  like  all  other  creatures,  to  perish 
and  dissolve.  To  him  thev  have  only  an  ethical  im- 
port. Finding  them  fixed  in  the  popular  belief, 
he  uses  them  as  illustrations  of  a  blessed  life. 
The  testimony  of  the  ancients  is  decisive  on  this 
subject.  Lucretius  makes  it  his  special  merit  to 
have  freed  his  followers  from  the  yoke  of  religion.^ 

As  to  his  morals,  the  authorities  differ.  Plu- 
tarch represents  him  as  licentious ;  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  balance  of  testimony  gives  the  impres- 
sioii  of  a  man  who  led  a  blameless,  and  unques- 
tionably a  very  frugal  and  abstemious,  life. 

An  Athenian  by  nation,  he  was  born  in  Samos, 
where  his  father,  as  KXrjpovxo^,  had  settled  him- 
self on  his  allotted  estate,  in  the  third  year  of 
the  109th  Olympiad,  about  342  b.  c,  on  the  seventh 
day  of  the  month  Gamelion.^  His  father,  Neocles, 
earned  a  meagre  livelihood  by  giving  instruction 
in  reading  and  writing.  His  mother,  Charestrata, 
added  a  little  to  the  res  angusta  by  lier  magic  arts ; 
being  what  would  be  called  in  modern  times  a  for- 
tune-teller. Her  social  position  was  of  the  lowest ; 
but  Epicurus  says  she  had  in  her  body  all  the 
atoms  which  go  to  make  a  philosopher.     The  only 

1  De  Rerum  Natura,  uU  supra. 

2  The  marriage  month,  the  seventh  of  the  Attic  year,  com- 
prising part  of  January  and  part  of  February. 


EPICURUS.  T 

memorable  thing  recorded  of  his  boyhood  is  the 
well-known  anecdote  mentioned  by  ApoUodorus. 
His  teacher  was  explaining  the  theogony  of  Hesiod, 
how  everything  sprang  from  original  chaos.  "  But 
whence  sprang  chaos  ? "  the  boy  demanded.  The 
question  revealed  an  inquisitive  mind.  The  chaos 
of  Greek  mythology  seems  to  have  served  the 
same  purpose  as  the  tortoise  of  Hindu  specula- 
tion. It  was  the  ultimate  ground,  the  foundation 
of  all  things.  You  must  stop  somewhere  in  your 
inquiry.  With  the  Hindu  the  question  was  one 
of  statics ;  and  he  stopped  with  the  big  tortoise, 
which  bears  the  elephant,  which  bears  something 
else,  which  bears  the  world.  With  the  Greek  the 
question  was  one  of  genesis ;  and  he  stopped  with 
chaos :  from  that  all  things  were  made.  But  the 
boy  Epicurus  would  not  stop  there.  What  made 
chaos?  It  was  a  boyish  inquisitiveness,  nothing 
more ;  the  man  Epicurus  found,  after  all,  nothing 
better  than  chaos  to  begin  with  or  end  with. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  first  visited  Athens, 
where  it  is  thought  he  may  have  studied  philos- 
ophy in  the  Old  Academy.  Plato  had  left  it,  and 
the  city,  and  the  world,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
before ;  but  the  school  on  the  old  Platonic  founda- 
tion remained.  It  was  run  by  Xenocrates.  It  is 
not  very  likely  that  Epicurus  was  admitted  to  its 
teachings.      He  probably  wanted  the  qualification 


8  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

of  a  knowledge  of  geometry,  since  he  affected  to 
despise  mathematical  science.  But  the  Old  Acad- 
emy met  applicants  for  admission  with  the  warn- 
ing, ^7]SeU  ay€co/JL€Tp7]To<;  elcriTco ;  and  Xenocrates  is 
said  to  have  been  particularly  strict  in  enforcing 
that  condition. 

His  stay  in  Athens  at  that  time  is  supposed  to 
have  been  shortened  by  political  troubles,  which 
forced  him  to  rejoin  his  father,  who  was  then  a 
teacher  at  Colophon ;  but  that,  too,  was  a  brief 
sojourn.  He  followed  for  some  years  a  vagabond 
life,  studying  and  teaching  in  various  places,  found- 
ing schools  at  Mytilene  and  Lampsacus,  over  which 
he  presided  for  several  years.  Finally,  in  307  b.  c, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  he  returned  to  Athens, 
where  he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

He  had  chosen  his  career.  Philosophy  claimed 
him,  drew  him;  and  if  predetermination  of  will, 
and  devotion  of  every  faculty  and  means  to  that 
pursuit  are  proofs  of  vocation,  a  philosopher  he 
was  morally  called  to  be.  His  intellectual  quali- 
fications are  not  so  apparent.  His  aptitude  for 
transcendental  speculation  or  fresh  discovery  in 
the  realms  of  thought  was  small.  Neither  the 
intuitive  nor  the  analytic  faculty  in  him  seems 
to  have  been  constitutionally  robust  or  happily  de- 
veloped. His  theory  halts,  and  his  logic  stumbles. 
A  consistent  and  intelligible  view  of  the  universe. 


EPICURUS.  ^  9 

with  or  witliout  a  God,  or  a  rational  psychology, 
it  was  not  in  him  to  construct.  He  was  equally 
deficient  in  the  power  of  intellectual  appropriation. 
He  failed  to  comprehend  the  speculations  of  other 
men ;  existing  systems  he  had  not  the  patience  to 
fathom.  He  borrowed  chiefly  from  Democritus, 
but  travesties  the  Democritic  theory  which  he  uses. 
And  because  he  was  unable  to  master  previous 
systems,  he  abuses  their  authors.  He  vilifies  the 
thinkers  of  his  day,  as  Schopenhauer  does  the 
thinkers  of  his.  Cicero  says  of  him  :  "  Contume- 
liosissime  Aristotelem  vexavit,  PliJEdoni  Socratico 
turpissime  maledixit."  ^  Even  Democritus,  his 
master,  does  not  escape  his  disparagement ;  "  in 
Democritum  ipsum  quern  secutus  est,  ingratus." 
He  seems  to  have  imbibed  little  or  nothing  of 
the  scientific  culture  of  his  time,  which  he  af- 
fected to  despise.  Learning  of  every  kind  he 
treated  with  disdain.  "  Non  satis  politus,"  says 
Cicero,  ''  iis  artibus  quas  qui  tenent  eruditi  appel- 
lantur."  TIacrav  iraiheiav  fiafcdptot  (pevyere,  ''  Shun 
all  learning,  ye  blessed  ! "  he  writes  in  a  letter  to 
Pythocles ;  reminding  one  of  a  certain  other 
Epicurean,  who  declared  that  "  much  study  is 
a  weariness  of  the  flesh,"  and  that  "  he  that 
increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow."  He 
nevertheless   verified    by   his    own    example    the 

1  De  Natura  Deorum,  i.  33. 


10  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

confession  of  the  Hebrew,  that  "  of  making  many 
books  there  is  no  end  ; "  for  he  is  said  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  voluminous  of  the  writers 
of  antiquity.  "  JToXfY/oat^coraro?,"  says  Diogenes 
Laertius,  his  biographer.  Three  hundred  vokimes 
are  ascribed  to  him.  They  have  not  survived ; 
and  if  the  fragment  TJepl  ^vaeo)^,  discovered  in 
Herculaneam  and  edited  by  Orelli,  is  a  fair  sam- 
ple, literature  has  suffered  little  by  their  loss. 
A  prolific  writer,  but  a  poor  scholar,  in  the 
great  intellectual  movement  which  distinguished 
his  century  above  all  preceding  epochs  he  had 
no  active,  scarcely  a  passive,  part.  For  him 
Plato  had  lived,  and  Aristotle  was  living,  in  vain. 
He  boasted  himself  an  autodidaktos,  and  disclaimed 
all  indebtedness  to  those  who  preceded  him. 
Yet  as  an  ethicist  he  built  on  Socratic  ground. 
He  reverted  to  Socrates,  just  as  Schopenhauer, 
repudiating  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  went 
back  to  Kant.  Ritter  regards  his  philosophy  as 
an  episode,  an  interpolation  in  Greek  philosophy ; 
but  Steinhart  —  more  correctly,  I  think  —  recog- 
nizes in  it  a  lineal  offspring  of  the  great  Socratic 
movement. 

His  abstinence  from  public  affairs  and  the  ser- 
vice of  the  state  is  ascribed  by  his  partial  biog- 
rapher, Diogenes  Laertius,  to  extreme  modesty. 
He  had  certainly  what  is  called  a  retiring  dispo- 


EPICURUS.  11 

sition.  Retirement  was  a  cardinal  point  in  his 
practical  philosophy,  the  logical  result  of  his 
fundamental  principle,  XdOe  /Btcoaa^.  "  I  never 
sought,"  he  says,  "  to  please  the  people  ;  for  the 
things  which  I  know,  the  populace  disapproves, 
and  the  things  which  the  populace  approves,  I 
am  ignorant  of."  There  might  he  other  reasons 
for  this  abstinence.  Since  Athens  had  lost  her 
independence,  and  Greece  her  political  importance, 
men  of  talent  were  no  longer  in  demand.  The 
motive  which  once  induced  the  ablest  minds  to 
engage  in  public  affairs  had  ceased  to  operate. 
The  state  had  no  need  of  philosophy,  and  philos- 
ophy ignored  the   state. 

Having  chosen  Athens  for  his  residence,  and 
finding  nothing  congenial  in  other  schools,  Epi- 
curus adopted  a  course  which  characterizes  the 
genius  of  the  man,  and  which  properly  dates 
his  philosopliic  career.  He  purchased  for  eighty 
min^  (about  $>300)  a  lot  of  land  within  the 
walls  of  the  city,  threw  it  open  to  the  public, 
and  gathered  around  him  a  society  of  intelligent 
men  and  women,  who  with  him  devoted  them- 
selves to  philosophic  pursuits ;  ^.  c,  to  philosophic 
discussion  and  social  converse.  I  say  intelligent 
women.  The  women,  it  is  true,  so  far  as  T  can 
learn,    belonged    to    the    class    of     hefairai,^  —  a 

1  Literally  companions;  not  al  vays,  but  most  commonly,  con- 
cubines. 


12  PMILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

class  whom  their  own  sex  in  most  countries 
exclude  from  the  pale  of  their  society,  but 
who  seem  in  Athens  to  have  occupied  a  less 
degrading  position  than  elsewhere,  and,  what  is 
singular,  to  have  been  the  best  educated  and 
most  agreeable  women  of  the  city.  They  are  the 
only  women  one  hears  much  about  in  Athenian 
history.  Aspasia,  as  a  foreigner,  belonged  tech- 
nically to  this  class,  though  not  in  the  baser 
sense. 

With  what  right  the  kyj-ttol  'EiriKovpov  were 
called  a  garden  is  not  apparent.  Of  horticulture 
there  is  no  record.  Gassendi  thinks  the  word 
took  its  name  from  the  region  of  the  city  to  which 
it  belonged,  —  the  Ktjttol.  Pliny,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  his  "  Natural  History,"  testifies  that  Epi- 
curus introduced  the  custom  of  having  gardens 
in  the  city.  "  Primus  hoc  instituit  Epicurus  otii 
magister.  Usque  ad  eum,  moris  non  fuerat,  in 
oppidis  habitari  rura."  It  could  not  fail  that  the 
presence  of  women  of  the  class  I  have  named 
should  give  rise  to  scandalous  reports  concerning 
the  morals  of  the  school.  Its  enemies  —  some 
of  them  deserters  from  the  company  —  wrote  and 
circulated  disgusting  accounts  of  the  manner  of 
life  and  orgies  of  these  philosophers,  which  have 
probably  given  rise  to  the  bad  repute  which  at- 
tached to  the  sect  among  the  ancients,  —  to  the 


EPICURUS.  13 

"  porci  ex  Epicuri  grege."  The  curious  in  such 
matters  may  find  the  scandal  recorded  by  Plu- 
tarch and  Bayle,  —  recorded,  not  adopted.  The 
best  authorities  entirely  discredit  all  these  alle- 
gations. The  respectable  opponents  of  Epicurus 
declare  him  free  from  all  taint  of  licentiousness. 
Chrysippus  the  Stoic,  his  chief  antagonist,  who 
certainly  would  not  have  missed  the  opportunity 
of  a  credible  accusation,  not  only  exonerates,  but 
pronounces  him  incapable  of  sensual  passion. 
Cicero  and  Seneca  vindicate  his  character,  while 
condemning  his  doctrine.  On  the  whole,  it  was 
a  pure  and  beautiful  life  which  those  garden- 
philosophers  lived,  if  not,  as  judged  by  Stoic  and 
Christian  standards,  a  very  heroic  one. 

An  inscription  at  the  entrance  of  the  garden 
welcomed  the  visitor  with  the  words :  "  Guest,  it 
is  good  to  be  here ;  here  pleasure  is  the  supreme 
good."  And  certainly  there  was  never  before,  and 
has  never  been  since,  a  pleasure  party  —  a  com- 
pany of  men  and  women  assembled  for  the  purpose 
of  enjoyment— whose  views  of  enjoyment  were  so 
severe,  and  whose  style  of  pleasure  was  so  refined. 
"  Spare  Fast,  that  oft  with  Gods  doth  diet,"  was 
caterer  to  these  voluptuaries  ;  Sobriety  the  butler 
that  officiated  at  their  carousals.  "  Here  barley- 
cakes  and  fresh  spring-water,"  the  visitor  was  told, 
"  are  freely  dispensed.     The  garden  will  not  tempt 


14  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

jovi  with  artificial  delicacies,  but  will  satisfy  natural 
hunger  with  natural  food.  Will  you  not  be  well 
entertained?"  "Such,"  exclaims  our  Greek  Dry- 
asdust, ^  "  was  the  man  who  taught  that  pleasure 
is  the  chief  end,"  —  TotovTo<^  rjv  6  ti-]v  rjSovrjv  elvat 
reXo^:  SoyfjiaTL^wv.  The  trifling  cost  of  this  garden- 
life  was  defrayed  by  voluntary  contributions  from 
individuals  thus  associated.  There  was  no  commu- 
nity of  goods,  as  with  the  Essenes  and  the  Pyth- 
agoreans. There  was  no  obligation  on  the  rich 
to  make  common  stock  of  their  wealth,  or  even 
to  bear  their  part  of  the  expense.  Epicurus  dis- 
dained such  enforced  communism ;  he  viewed  it 
as  a  sign  of  mistrust.  True  friends  must  have 
that  confidence  one  toward  another  which  without 
any  formal  institution  would  give  them  the  vir- 
tual command  of  each  other's  goods.  It  was  a 
kind  of  perennial  picnic,  where  each  contributed 
according  to  his  humor.  Never  has  the  world 
seen  finer  examples  of  friendships  based  on  intel- 
lectual affinity,  never  a  society  bound  by  sublimer 
trust  Really,  those  Greeks  had  a  style  of  their 
own  beyond  the  capabilities  of  modern  life.  Ima- 
gine in  some  modern  capital  —  say  Paris  or  New 
York  — a  public  garden  offering  pleasure  as  the 
supreme  good,  open  to  all  classes  and  all  repu- 
tations, and  continuing   for   centuries   to   furnish 

1  Diogenes  Laertius. 


EPICURUS.  15 

this  sort  of  entertainment,  and  to  draw  high  and 
low  by  the  simple  attraction  of  philosophic  in- 
quiry. A  remarkable  feature  of  those  conferences 
was  the  presence  and  participation  of  slaves  ;  and 
a  beautiful  trait  in  the  character  of  Epicurus, 
noticed  by  Seneca,  is  his  treatment  of  this  class 
of  fellow-beings,  whom  he  called  his  friends,  — 
thus  proving  his  superiority  to  the  prejudices  of 
his  age,  and  illustrating  by  his  own  example  the 
humanity  commended  in  his  doctrine.  "  Habe- 
ant  enim  sane  nomen  quod  illis  Epicurus  noster 
imposuit."  ^ 

Besides  this  garden,  in  which  most  of  his  time 
was  spent,  he  possessed,  according  to  Diogenes 
Laertius,  a  house  in  another  part  of  the  city,  in 
the  demos  Melite,  —  a  house  of  small  dimensions, 
but  which  his  boundless  hospitality  and  the  strong 
attraction  of  his  friendship  filled  witli  guests. 
Cicero  extols  this  characteristic  of  the  man,  —  the 
high  value  he  set  on  friendship,  the  place  assigned 
to  it  in  his  theory  of  life  and  in  his  practice.  T 
quote  the  passage  from  the  "  De  Finibus : "  ^ 

"  Epicurus  says  of  friendship,  that  of  all  the  things 
which  wisdom  shall  have  provided  for  a  happy  life,  there 
is  none  which  surpasses  friendship,  nothing  more  fruitful, 
nothing  more  delightful  (nihil  esse  majus  amicitia,  nihil 
uberius,  nihil  jucundius).     And  not  with  his  words  alone 

1  Seneca,  Ep.  107.  2  Lib.  i.  c  20. 


16  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

maintained  lie  this,  but  far  more  with  his  hfe,  with  his 
deeds,  with  his  manners.  The  significance  of  this  fact 
may  be  inferred  from  ancient  fiction.  Many  and  various 
as  are  the  stories  which  have  come  to  us  from  the  highest 
antiquity,  there  are  found  in  them  scarce  three  pairs  of 
friends,  from  Theseus  to  Orestes.  But  Epicurus,  in  a 
single  house,  and  that  a  small  one,  entertained  what 
troops  of  friends  bound  together  by  how  great  a  consent 
and  conspiracy  of  love  !  (Quam  magnos,  quantaque  amoris 
conspiratione,  consentientes  tenuit  amicorum  greges  !)  And 
the  Epicureans  at  the  present  day  maintain  the  same 
practice  (quod  fit    etiam  nunc  ab  Epicureis)." 

From  all  I  can  learn  1  should  say  that  no 
man  of  his  day  was  more  widely  and  deeply 
beloved ;  and  what  renders  this  attachment  more 
remarkable  is  that  the  subject  of  it  appears  to 
have  been  entirely  deficient  in  the  sprightliness 
and  humor  which  season  social  intercourse,  and 
which  constituted  so  prominent  a  characteristic 
of  his  countrymen.  A  man  of  unusual  gravity ; 
Cicero  says  of  him :  "  Homo  non  aptissimus  ad 
jocandum,  minimeque  resipiens  patriam." 

His  temperate  habits  did  not  secure  him  the 
exemption  wdiich  might  have  been  expected  from 
some  of  the  worst  forms  of  bodily  disease,  arpay- 
fyovpla  KOI  BvaevrepLKa  irdOi],  which  he  bore  wdtli 
unshrinking  fortitude,  and  in  the  midst  of  wdiich 
lie  died,  foreseeing  his  end,  aware  that  the  day  of 
his  greatest  suffering  was  his  last.     He  called  it 


EPICURUS.  17 

a  blessed  and  joyful  day  ;  and  in  that  spirit  wrote 
to  Idomeneus  ^  a  letter  which  Laertius  has  pre- 
served to  us  :  "  On  this  happy  and  closing  day  of 
my  life  I  write  to  thee  this  :  '  While  suffering  with 
strangury  and  dysenter/  pains  incapable  of  in- 
crease, I  am  compensated  in  all  this  by  the  joy 
I  have  in  the  memory  of  our  former  discussions.' " 
Seneca  alludes  to  this  heroic  confession  in  an 
argument  with  a  friend  on  the  goods  of  life.  "  I 
will  give  you,"  he  says,  "  Epicurus  his  classi- 
fication of  goods, — very  similar  to  this  of  mine. 
There  are  some  things  which  he  would  prefer 
for  his  allotment,  such  as  ease  of  body,  free  from 
all  annoyance,  and  the  calm  of  a  mind  rejoicing 
in  the  contemplation  of  its  goods.  There  are 
others  which  though  lie  would  rather  they  should 
not  befall  him,  he  nevertheless  praises  and  ap- 
proves ;  such  as  the  experience  of  ill  health  and 
very  severe  pains.  And  this  was  the  case  with 
Epicurus  on  that  last  and  most  blessed  day  of 
his  life ;  for  he  says  that  he  was  suffering  tortures 
of  the  bladder  and  of  ulcerated  bowels  which 
admitted  of  no  increase,  but  that  nevertheless  it 
was  for  him  a  blessed  day."  We  cannot,  I  think, 
deny  the  praise,  if  not  of  high  heroism,  at  least 
of  an  equanimity  more  germane  to  the  Stoic  than 

1  Cicero  says  to  Herniachus ;   but   I   follow   the  authority   of 
Diogenes  Laertius. 


18  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

the  Epicurean  doctrine  in  such  an  ending.  Here 
was  a  man  about  to  lapse,  as  he  supposed,  into 
endless  nothing  ;  for  a  future  existence  was  some- 
thing undreamed  of  in  his  phih)Sophy.  The  atoms 
which  for  seventy-two  years  in  joint-stock  com- 
pany had  carried  on  a  certain  life-business  called 
Epicurus,  were  about  to  dissolve  partnership,  break 
lip  their  establishment,  not  one  of  them  ever  again 
in  eternal  time,  as  he  believed,  to  resume  that 
business  and  renew  that  life.  What,  in  view  of 
this  impending  wreck,  is  his  resource  and  conso- 
lation ?  —  the  man  who  held  that  pleasure  is  the 
supreme  good,  according  to  whose  theory  every- 
thing else  was  dross  ?  If  he  had  n't  that,  he  had 
nothing ;  his  doctrine  had  failed  in  the  final  test. 
But  the  fangs  of  mortal  disease  were  clutching 
at  his  heartstrings  —  pains  that  admitted  of  no 
increase.  How  manage  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
in  such  straits  ?  What  pleasure  for  a  man  with- 
out a  future,  hemmed  in  between  bodily  anguish 
and  death  ?  Future  there  is  none ;  the  present 
is  torment ;  but  the  past  remains.  He  recalls 
discussions  with  Idomeneus  in  years  gone  by. 
The  joy  of  that  remem]>rance  compensates  all. 
Was  ever  philosopher  so  put  to  it  for  support  in 
extremis  f 

"  Oh,  who  can  hokl  a  fire  in  his  hand 
By  tliinking  on  the  frosty  Caucasus  ?  " 


EPICURUS.  19 

Plutarch  pours  contempt  on  the  story.  "  A 
man  may  better  see  the  resemblance  of  his  own 
face  in  a  troubled  deep  or  a  storm,  than  a 
smooth  and  smiling  remembrance  of  past  plea- 
sure in  a  body  tortured  with  such  lancing  and 
rending  pains." 

He  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-two,  in  the  second 
year  of  the  127th  Olympiad  (270  b.  c.)  His  very 
minute  testament,  preserved  by  Laertius,  is  char- 
acteristic, and  exhibits  at  once  his  kindly  dispo- 
sition and  his  self-conceit.  He  gave  their  freedom 
to  several  of  his  slaves.  The  bulk  of  his  property 
he  bequeathed  to  two  of  his  confidants,  Timo- 
krates  and  Amynomachus,  who  were  to  come 
under  bonds  to  provide  for  the  maintenance  and 
education  of  the  sons  of  his  friend  and  disciple, 
Metrodorus,  until  their  majority,  and  also  to 
furnish  a  dower  for  his  daughter.  To  another 
friend,  then  living,  he  bequeathed  a  life-interest 
in  the  "  garden,"  and  appointed  him  his  succes- 
sor, as  head  of  the  school,  with  the  provision 
that  every  future  successor  while  in  office  should 
have  the  usufruct  of  the  garden,  which  should 
thus  continue  to  be  the  headquarters  of  the  sect. 
He  moreover  directed  that  a  portion  of  the  in- 
terest of  his  property  should  be  devoted  to  the 
annual  celebration  of  his  birthday,  and  to  cover 
the  expense  of   a  feast  on  the  twentieth  of  each 


20  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

month,  in  honor  of  him  and  his  friend  Metrodo- 
rus.  This  proposition  Cicero  severely  criticises, 
partly  on  the  ground  of  vanity  and  inconsistency 
with  the  teachings  of  one  who  professed  to  hold 
that  nothing  pertains  to  us  after  death,  and  partly 
on  the  ground  that  a  philosopher,  and  especially 
a  physicist,  ought  to  know  that  the  idea  of  an 
annual  birthday  is  all  nonsense.  The  same  day, 
he  says,  can  occur  but  once,  nor  indeed  its  like- 
ness, unless,  after  the  lapse  of  many  thousand 
years,  all  the  heavenly  bodies  shall  come  to  have 
precisely  the  same  position.  "  Quid  verene  ?  Po- 
test esse  dies  ssepius,  qui  semel  fuit?  Certe  non 
potest.  An  ejusdem  modi  ?  ne  id  quidem,  nisi, 
cum  multa  annorum  intercesserint  millia,  ut  om- 
nium siderum,  eodem,  unde  profecta  sint,  fiat  ad 
unum  tempus  reversio.  Nullus  est  igitur  cujus- 
quam  dies  natalis."  Democritus,  Epicurus'  great 
oracle,  would  not,  he  thinks,  have  acted  thus.  It 
was  not  the  part  of  one  who  had  traversed  in  his 
mind  "  innumerabiles  mundos,  infinitasque  regi- 
ones,  quarum  nulla  esset  ora,  nulla  extremitas." 

It  was  not  until  after  his  death  that  the  fame 
of  Epicurus  attained  the  expansion  which  Plu- 
tarch charges  him  with  secretly  coveting,  in  spite 
of  his  \d6e  jSicoo-a^.  "  The  truth  is,"  says  Plu- 
tarch, ^'  Epicurus  himself  allows  there  are  some 
pleasures  derived  from  fame.     And,  indeed,  why 


EPICURUS.  21 

should  he  not,  when  he  himself  had  such  a  fu- 
rious lechery  and  wriggling  after  glory  as  made 
him  not  only  disown  his  masters,  and  scuffle  about 
syllables  and  accents  with  his  fellow-pedant,  De- 
mocritus,  whose  grammar-rules  he  stole  verbatim, 
and  tell  his  disciples  that  there  never  was  a  wise 
man  in  the  world  besides  himself,  but  also  to  put 
it  in  writing  how  Colotes  rendered  homage  to 
him,  as  he  was  one  day  philosophizing,  by  touch- 
ing his  knees."  Whatever  of  justice  or  injustice 
there  may  be  in  this  accusation,  it  would  seem 
that  Epicurus  anticipated  the  postumous  glory 
which  awaited  him,  when  he  wrote  to  Idome- 
neus,  who  aspired  to  political  distinction :  "  If  you 
are  smitten  with  the  love  of  glory,  my  letters 
will  make  you  more  famous  than  these  objects 
which  you  adore,  and  for  whose  sake  you  are 
adored."  So  Shakspeare's  sonnet  promises  his 
friend,  — 

"  And  thou  in  this  ehalt  find  thy  monument, 
When  tyrants'  crests  and  tombs  of  brass  are  spent." 

Famous  he  became.  His  followers  bore  his  im- 
age engraved  on  cups  and  rings ;  his  native  city 
erected  statues  to  his  memory.  The  school  flour- 
ished, the  sect  increased ;  it  prevailed  in  Greece, 
it  found  followers  in  Rome.  St.  Paul,  three  cen- 
turies later,  encountered  its  disciples  at  Athens; 


22  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

and  Seneca,  contemporary  with  Paul,  writes  to  his 
friend  Lucilius  :  — 

"  Glory  is  the  shadow  of  virtue ;  it  will  accompany  even 
those  who  desire  it  not.  But  as  shadows  sometimes  precede 
and  sometimes  follow,  so  our  renown  is  sometimes  before 
us,  and  offers  itself  to  cur  sight ;  and  sometimes  it  is 
turned  from  us ;  but  the  later  it  is,  the  greater  it  is,  when 
envy  has  died  away.  .  .  .  Look  at  Epicurus,  whom  not 
only  the  learned,  but  the  ignorant  multitude,  admire.  This 
man  was  unknown  in  the  very  city  of  Athens  where  he 
hid.  Survivor  of  Metrodorus  by  many  years,  in  a  letter 
in  which  he  celebrates  their  mutual  friendship  with  grate- 
ful remembrance,  he  adds  at  last  that,  possessed  of  such 
goods,  it  was  no  injury  to  Metrodorus  and  himself  that 
the  nobles  of  Greece  not  only  ignored,  but  scarcely  knew 
them  by  report.  .  .  .  Metrodorus  also  confesses  in  one  of 
his  letters  that  he  and  Epicurus  had  not  tiie  distinction 
they  deserved ;  but  afterward  adds,  that  a  great  name  was 
in  store  for  them  with  those  who  were  willing  to  follow  in 
their  steps.  I^o  virtue  can  remain  concealed  ;  or  if  con- 
cealed, it  is  not  virtue's  loss  (nulla  latet  virtus,  et  latuisse 
non  ipsius  est  damnum)." 

It  is  not  very  likely  that  new  discoveries  will 
throw  new  light  on  the  man  whose  personality  has 
proved  such  a  power  in  the  world,  whose  charac- 
teristic idea  yet  lives,  and  has  representatives 
still,  although  the  school  and  the  confession  are 
long  since  extinct.  We  have  all  the  materials  we 
are  likely  to  have  for  forming  our  judgment  of  his 
character  and  life.     What  shall  the  verdict  be  ?    1 


EPICURUS.  23 

cannot  accept  that  of  Plutarch  concerning  the  man, 
though  Plutarch  rightly  judged  the  doctrine.  I 
incline  to  that  of  Cicero  in  the  Tusculan  Ques- 
tions :  ^  "  Venit  Epicurus,  homo  minime  malus 
vel  potius  vir  optimus."  An  austere  gravity,  a 
kind  of  Quaker  simplicity,  I  judge  to  have  been 
his  type.  In  his  letters,  instead  of  the  customary 
salutation,  %at/3e  !  hail !  he  is  said  to  have  sub- 
stituted an  admonition  to  act  well,  —  Ev  Trpdrreiv  ; 
and  we  are  told  that  in  his  treatise  on  Rhetoric 
he  named  but  one  excellence,  that  of  plainness. 

A  simple,  grav^e,  and  kindly  man;  a  man  who 
meant  well  and  who  lived  well,  if  that  garden 
theory  of  his  be  allowed.  But  when  we  ask  what 
fruits  of  enduring  worth  that  garden  yielded  to 
continuous  culture  of  three  hundred  years,  —  what 
venerable  name,  to  be  ranked  with  the  heroes  of 
the  Porch,  with  the  Catos  and  Antonines,  the 
Epicurean  school  has  produced,  —  the  answer  is 
a  blank.  A  blank  in  history  is  the  school  of 
Epicurus,  though  not  altogether  a  blank  in  let- 
ters. One  poem  at  least,  of  prime  renown,  it  has 
given  to  the  world,  the  consummate  exponent  of 
its  doctrine.  The  poem  of  Lucretius,  "  De  Rerum 
Natura,"  is  ranked  by  the  critics  among  the  fore- 
most —  by  some,  indeed,  as  the  very  foremost  —  in 
Roman  literature.  Ovid  predicted  for  it  a  fame 
1  Lib.  ii.  c.  19. 


24  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM, 

coeval  with  the  earth's  duration.  We  are  safe 
in  pronouncing  it  the  first  of  didactic  poems.  It 
is  one  of  the  very  few  of  that  class  which  have 
won  for  themselves  an  enduring  fame.  Pope's 
"  Essay  on  Man  "  is  the  nearest  approach  to  it  in 
that  kind.  And  this  is  the  only  fruit  that  has 
reached  us  from  that  Epicurean  garden,  the  only 
product  that  remains  of  a  school  which  in  point 
of  popularity  occupied  the  foremost  place  among 
the  philosophic  systems  of  antiquity  and  filled 
the  classic  world  with  its  fame. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EPICURUS. 

In  my  characterization  of  Epicurus  I  spoke  of 
the  poverty  of  his  intellectual  culture,  and  noticed 
the  want  in  him  both  of  the  intuitive  and  the 
analytic  faculty.  For  speculative  inquiry,  for  dis- 
coveries in  the  realm  of  thought,  he  had  no  apti- 
tude ;  but  for  practical  philosophy  a  very  decided, 
inborn  vocation.  Philosophy  for  him  was  a  rule 
of  life  —  ivep'yeta  rov  evBatfioua  /3lov  nrepLTroLovcra. 
He  sought  in  it  precisely  what  Socrates  had  taught 
men  to  seek  in  it,  —  practical  well-being.  Espe- 
cially he  sought  in  it  freedom,  —  the  freedom 
which  Athens,  deprived  of  her  autonomy,  and  tend- 
ing to  political  downfall,  no  longer  enjoyed.  He 
sought  emancipation  from  the  yoke  of  superstition. 


JTf. 


EPICURUS.  .^^^^^    25 

Lucretius,  as  we  have  seen,  celebrates  this  motive 
in  one  of  his  sublimest  strains.  But  though  the 
philosophy  of  Epicurus  is  mainly  practical,  he  did 
speculate ;  he  was  given  to  system-making ;  he 
had  his  theory  of  knowledge  and  his  theory  of  the 
universe,  as  well  as  his  theory  and  rule  of  life. 
And  so  his  philosophy,  as  Diogenes  Laertius  tells 
us,  divides  itself  into  three  systems,  the  Kavco- 
vL/cov,  which  we  may  translate  psychology,  the 
cj^vcTtKoi/,  and  the  tjOckop^  —  Psychology,  Physic,  and 
Ethic. 

The  Psychology  need  occupy  us  but  a  very  few 
moments ;  it  is  crude,  even  for  that  period.  The 
prime  source  of  all  knowledge  in  the  view  of  Epi- 
curus is  sensible  experience.  The  objects  with- 
out us  throw  off  certain  images  ;  these  are  received 
by  the  senses  and  communicated  to  the  mind. 
The  senses  are  infallible  :  but  they  have  no  mem- 
ory ;  they  can  deal  only  with  what  is  immediately 
present.  An  internal  faculty  operates  on  the  im- 
ages which  sensuous  perception  has  lodged  in  the 
mind.  Then  the  sensations  —  that  is,  pleasure  and 
pain  —  advise  us  of  what  is  conducive  or  detri- 
mental to  our  well-being.  Hence  three  criteria 
of  truth,  —  perception,  ataOrjo-c^;,  conception,  irpo- 
X7]yjn<i,  and  sensation,  Tra^o?.  IlpoXrj^jri^  —  includ- 
ing memory,  understanding,  reason,  judgment,  all 
in  one  —  stores  away  the  images  which  enter  the 


26  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

brain  through  the  senses,  calls  them  up  at  pleas- 
ure, arranges,  compares,  and  draws  conclusions 
from  them.  Our  perceptions  are  always  correct, 
because  they  are  an  efflux  from  the  things  them- 
selves. Our  opinions  are  only  so  far  correct  as  they 
agree  with  the  testimony  of  the  senses  ;  where  they 
contradict  or  differ  from  this  they  are  false.  But 
whence  arises  this  disagreement,  and  its  cpnseciuent 
error  ?  Epicurus'  solution  of  this  question  is  pecu- 
liar. Perception,  he  says,  is  a  motion  from  without; 
opinion,  being  the  result  of  internal  contemplation 
of  the  images  thrown  in  upon  the  mind,  is  a  mo- 
tion from  within.  If  the  motion  from  within  is 
continuous  with  the  motion  from  without,  like  the 
co-ordinates  of  an  hyperbola,  then  the  opinion  is 
correct ;  but  if  it  disconnects  or  traverses  the  mo- 
tion from  without,  it  is  false.  Thus  all  knowl- 
edge, all  truth,  is  referred  at  last  to  material 
phenomena.  All  ideas  not  derivable  from  these 
he  regards  as  illusions.  He  allows  no  laws  of 
thought,  no  regulative  faculty  inherent  in  the 
mind.  Sensible  experience  not  only  supplies  the 
material  of  thought,  but  determines  all  correct 
thinking ;  and  sensible  experience  is  a  lawless  ag- 
gregation of  insulated  phenomena.  The  science 
of  geometry  not  being  founded  on  sensible  expe- 
rience, or  not  solely  on  that,  he  repudiated  as  not 
sufficiently  evident.     Here  is  something  that  marks 


EPICURUS.  27 

the  difference  between  the  ancient  and  modern 
mind,  and  discovers  a  real  progress  in  mental 
experience.  No  modern  sceptic  would  dream  of 
questioning  the  validity  of  mathematical  evidence 
within  its  own  legitimate  sphere.  No  modern 
would  venture  to  subordinate  the  certitude  of  geo- 
metrical demonstration  to  that  of  sensible  experi- 
ence. But  perhaps  what  Epicurus  really  meant 
was  that  geometry  deals  only  with  abstractions; 
and  that  seeing  there  are  no  such  things  in  nature 
as  the  triangles  and  circles  which  constitute  the 
topics  of  that  science,  they  have  not  for  us  the 
evidence  which  comes  with  tangible  realities. 

In  his  Physics,  his  Ontology,  although  it  was 
his  hobby  and  chief  pride,  Epicurus  appears  to  no 
better  advantage.  His  system  not  only  wants  the 
merit  of  originality,  but  adds  to  that  defect  a  mis- 
apprehension and  a  consequent  distortion  and  per- 
version of  the  doctrine  it  undertakes  to  present. 
His  atomic  theory,  according  to  unanimous  testi- 
mony, he  took  from  Democritus,  an  Eleatic  philo- 
sopher of  the  fourth  century  B.  c,  a  man  of  robust 
intellect  and  universal  learning,  greatly  the  supe- 
rior of  Epicurus  as  well  in  the  intuitive  as  in  the 
discursive  faculty.  He  belonged  to  what  is  called 
the  New  Eleatic,  distinguished  from  the  Old  by 
the  more  materialistic  and  sensuous  direction  of 
its  thought.     The  Old  Eleatics  applied  themselves 


28  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

to  the  study  of  the  absolute  ;  the  New  investigated 
the  phenomenal  woiid.^ 

Epicurus,  then,  adopted  the  atomic  theory  of 
Democritus.  Starting  with  the  axiom  that  nothing 
can  produce  nothing  (^ovhkv  ^iverai  e/c  tov  fx-q 
oPTO'i'),  he  held  that  the  worlds  were  formed  from 
atoms  which  must  have  had  an  eternal  existence. 
In  the  beginning  these  atoms  existed  only  in 
vacuo,  —  atoms  of  various  forms  and  dimensions. 
From  the  confluence,  collision,  and  concretion  of 
these  atoms  were  formed  the  bodies  that  com- 
pose our  world  and  all  the  worlds  that  are,  which 
he  supposes  to  be  infinite.  The  universe  is  con- 
stituted of  infinitesimal  atoms ;  it  will  one  day 
dissolve  into  atoms  again.  But  the  atoms  are 
eternal ;  they  will  remain,  and  form  new  worlds ; 
and  so  on  in  endless  succession.  But  how  hap- 
pened the  atoms  to  flow  together  while  yet  they 
existed  as  separate  indivisible  units  ?  Here  we 
come  upon  the  main  point  of  difference  between 
Epicurus  and  his  original.  Democritus  had  en- 
dowed his  atoms  with  an  aboriginal  motion  ;  he 
started  them  with  an  impact,  TrXrjyr].^  Epicurus 
thought    this   unphilosophical.      But   how   did   he 

1  Eleatic,  from  Elea,  a  town  in  Lower  Italy  colonized  by  the 
Greeks.  Not  that  all  the  philosophers  so  named  resided  there, 
but  because  it  was  the  residence  of  some  of  the  more  distinguished 
among  them  ;  e.  g.  Xenophanes  and  Parmenides. 

2  Cicero,  De  Fato,  20. 


EPICURUS.  29 

attempt  to  correct  the  error  ?  He  gave  his  atoms 
gravitation.  They  have  weight,  and  by  virtue  of 
their  weight  they  gravitated  downward.  Fancy, 
then,  a  snowfall  of  atoms  through  endless  space  ; 
a  snow  which,  like  that  described  by  Emerson, 
"  seems  nowhere  to  alight "  !  But  unfortunately 
for  this  hypothesis,  in  the  absence  of  concrete 
worlds,  in  pure  space,  there  is  no  up  nor  down,  and 
nothing  to  gravitate  to.  Our  philosopher,  in  at- 
tempting to  improve  upon  Democritus,  substitutes 
a  greater  absurdity  for  a  less.  Then  again  he 
saw  that  his  atoms,  if  they  had  only  this  one 
downward  motion,  each  descending  forever  in  a 
plumb-line,  would  never  in  all  eternity  collide.  So 
what  does  he  do  to  remedy  this  difficulty  ?  He 
adds  to  their  downward  a  sideward  motion  — 
very  slight,  just  a  little  cant,  the  smallest  possible 
declination.  But  by  what  power  or  efficient  cause 
this  sidelong  motion  was  effected,  or  how,  if  all 
the  atoms  have  it  equally,  the  difficulty  is  reme- 
died, does  not  appear.  But  Epicurus,  it  seems, 
had  another  purpose  in  giving  his  atoms  a  side- 
long motion,  besides  that  of  effecting  a  junction. 
Although  a  materialist,  he  believed  in  freedom  of 
will,  and  found  it  convenient  to  refer  that  freedom 
to  the  aboriginal  atoms.  They  were  not  mere 
passive  subjects  of  a  motion  impressed  upon  them 
by  necessity  ;  they  exercised  some  choice  in  the 


30  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

direction  they  assumed,  they  chose  to  go  a  little 
askew.  Crude  as  this  notion  is,  it  shadows  forth 
a  very  important  truth ;  namely  this,  that  human 
action  (which  Epicurus  would  refer  to  the  par- 
ticles that  compose  our  organism)  is  partly  the 
product  of  inevitable  circumstance,  and  partly  of 
free-will,  —  human  life  the  diagonal  resultant  of 
these  two  forces. 

I  have  found  nothing  in  Diogenes  Laertius  re- 
specting this  declination  of  the  atoms ;  my 
authority  is  Cicero.  In  the  treatise  "  De  Fini- 
bus  Bonorum  et  Malorum,"  cast  in  the  form  of 
a  colloquy  between  L.  Torquatus,  C.  Triarius,  and 
Cicero,  Torquatus,  the  advocate  of  Epicurus,  asks 
why  Cicero,  who  does  not,  like  most  of  his  oppo- 
nents, hate  the  man,  cannot  accept  the  philos- 
opher, —  whom  I,  he  says,  "  quem  ego  arbitror 
unum  vidisse  verum,  maximisque  erroribus,  homi- 
num  anirnos  liberavisse,  et  omnia  tradidisse  quae 
pertinent  ad  bene  beateque  vivendum."  He  thinks 
it  must  be  because  Epicurus  wrote  in  so  plain 
a  style  ;  he  had  not  Plato's,  and  Aristotle's,  and 
Theophrastus'  ornate  diction. 

"  For  I  can  scarcely  believe  that  you  will  not  allow  the 
truth  of  his  doctrine.  Yon  are  mistaken,  says  Cicero. 
His  style  offends  me  not,  he  writes  intelligibly,  and  that 
is  all  I  ask  of  a  philosopher,  although  I  despise  not 
eloquence  if  he   has  it  to  give.     It  is  his  matter  with 


EPICURUS.  31 

which  I  am  dissatisfied,  and  that  in  very  many  respects. 
But  so  many  men,  so  many  minds  (quot  homines,  tot 
sententise).  I  may  be  mistaken  (falli  igitiir  possiimus). 
[Being  pressed  for  the  grounds  of  his  dissent,  he  presents 
his  objections.]  Principio,  in  physicis,  quibus  maxime 
gloriatur,  primum  totus  est  alienus.  Democrito  adjicit 
perpauca,  mutans,  sed  ita,  ut  ea  qute  corrigere  vult  mihi 
quidem  depravare  videatur.  There  are  many  things  in 
both  which  I  do  not  approve,  and  especially  this,  —  that 
whereas  there  are  two  things  to  be  considered  in  nature : 
first,  what  the  matter  is  of  which  all  things  are  made ; 
and  second,  the  force  by  which  they  are  made,  —  these 
men  discourse  only  of  matter,  and  neglect  the  efficient 
cause.  (Sed  hoc  commune  vitium  ;  illse  Epicuri  propriae 
ruinre.)  For  he  [Epicurus]  holds  that  these  individual, 
solid  bodies  are  carried  by  their  own  weight  in  a  right  line 
downward,  —  that  being  the  natural  motion  of  all  bodies. 
But  then  the  sharp-sighted  man  perceived  that  if  this 
were  the  case,  if  all  the  atoms  moved  downward  from  on 
high,  and  that  in  a  right  line  (ad  lineam),  one  atom  would 
never  touch  another.  Therefore  he  added  a  comment : 
Declinare  dixit  atomum  perpaullum,  quo  nihil  posset  fieri 
minus.  Thus  were  brought  about  the  embraces  and  copu- 
lations and  adhesions  of  atoms  among  themselves,  from 
which  the  world  was  made,  and  all  its  parts,  and  all  that 
is  therein." 

This  puerile  fiction,  he  goes  on  to  say,  does  not 
even  accomplish  its  end.  The  law  of  gravitation 
is  violated  to  no  purpose,  and  w^e  have  the  ab- 
surdity so  repugnant  to  physicists,  —  an  effect 
without  a  cause.     This  error  would  not  have  been 


32  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

committed,  Cicero  thinks,  if  Epicurus  had  studied 
that  geometry  which  he  so  despised. 

The  neglect  of  this  science  led  to  another 
blunder,  in  which  he  shows  hi^  inferiority  to  De- 
mocritus.  To  that  philosopher  the  sun  appeared 
to  be  a  body  of  great  magnitude,  as  it  naturally 
would  to  a  learned  man  and  one  skilled  in  geom- 
etry. Epicurus,  on  the  contrary,  set  it  down  as 
being  two  feet  in  diameter  (bipedalis),  or  there- 
about ;  it  might  be  a  little  more,  or  it  might  be  a 
little  less  (vel  paulo  aut  majorem  aut  minorem).  ^ 

In  another  work,  the  treatise  "  De  Fato,"  Cicero 
criticises  more  sharply  the  doctrine  of  the  side- 
long movement  of  the  atoms  :  — 

**Declinat,  inquit,  atomus.  Primum  curl  Aliam 
enim  quandam  vim  motus  habebant  a  Democrito  im- 
pulsion is  quam  plagam  ille  appellat :  a  te  Epicure  gra- 
vitatis  et  ponderis.  Quse  ergo  nova  causa  in  natura  est 
qu0e  decliuet  atomum?  Aut  num  sortiuntur  inter  se 
qu86  declinet,  qufje  non?  Aut  cur  minimo  declinent  in- 
tervallo,  majore  non?  Aut  cur  declinent  uno  minimo 
non  declinent  duobus  aut  tribus  t  [This  is  willing,  not 
reasoning.]  Optare  hoc  quidem  est,  non  disputare.  .  .  . 
Ita  cum  attulisset  nullam  causam  quse  istam  declina- 
tionem  efficeret,  tamen  aliquid  sibi  dicere  videtur,  cum 
id  dicat  quod  omnium  mentes  aspernentur  ac  respuant."^ 

Lucretius,^  the  faithful  interpreter  of  Epicurus, 

1  De  Finibus,  i.  6.  2  Dq  Pato,  20. 

8  De  Rerum  Natura,  ii.  221-290. 


EPICURUS.  33 

stoutly  maintains  the  decimation  of  the  atoms,  and 
finds  in  it  the  origin  and  ground  of  liberty. 

David  Hume,  in  his  "  Dialogues  on  Natural  Re- 
ligion," suggests  a  modification  of  the  doctrine 
of  Epicurus  as  a  iwssible  hypothesis  of  the  origin 
of  things. 1 

There  is  nothing  else  in  the  physical  theory  of 
Epicurus  that  need  detain  us.  Its  other  features, 
all  his  views  of  nature,  are  such  as  naturally 
result  from  his  fundamental  principle  of  fortui- 
tousness, —  the  denial  of  any  such  thing  as  law 
or  order  or  design  in  the  universe,  —  and  his  doc- 
trine of  the  certitude  of  sensible  experience,  which 
makes  appearance  the  final  test  of  truth. 

It  is  the  ethic  of  Epicurus  that  constitutes  his 
real  merit,  and  gives  him  a  substantial  title  to 
the  admiration  and  respect  of  mankind.  Here 
he  is  truly  original  and  great.  His  ethical  phi- 
losophy was  a  bold  attempt  to  establish  on  inde- 
pendent grounds,  irrespective  of  all  traditions  of 
duty  and  religion,  a  rational  rule  and  scheme  of 
life.  I  do  not  mean  to  express  approbation  of  his 
system.  Its  ground  idea,  however  construed,  is 
questionable.  As  commonly  received,  it  is  utterly 
false.  Its  rule  of  life  fails  to  do  justice  to  the 
possibilities  of  human  nature.  Tried  by  the  high- 
est ideal,  it  stands  condemned ;  yet,  as  compared 

1  See  Second  Edition,  London,  p.  146. 


34  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

with  the  Stoic,  it  has  the  shining  merit  of  hon- 
esty. If  it  erred  in  affirming  pleasure  to  be  the 
supreme  good,  it  did  not  deny  the  evil  of  pain ; 
if  its  scheme  of  life  was  impracticable,  the  Stoic 
was  equally  so. 

"  For  never  yet  was  there  philosopher 
That  could  endure  the  toothache  patiently, 
However  they  have  writ  the  style  of  gods, 
And  made  a  pish !  at  chance  and  sufferance.'* 

The  first  suggestion  of  his  ethical  system  Epi- 
curus seems  to  have  derived  from  the  Cyrenaics, 
whose  founder,  Aristippus,  a  disciple  of  Socrates, 
but  widely,  in  this,  diverging  from  his  master, 
made  momentary  enjoyment  the  prime  object  in 
life.  'HSopiKOL,  voluptuaries,  they  were  termed, 
in  accordance  with  this  trait.  Epicurus  was  at- 
tracted to  the  sect  by  the  one  principle  in  it  which 
coincided  with  his  own  psychological  conclusion, 
—  that  the  feelings  of  joy  and  pain  are  the  only 
tests  of  practical  truth,  and  should  therefore  de- 
termine our  rule  of  life.  Accordingly,  his  starting- 
point  was,  that  pleasure  is  the  sum  and  substance 
of  a  blessed  life,  —  rjBovr)  ap-^r)  koI  re\o<;  rov  /xaKa- 
pLa)<;  ^))v.  His  claim  to  originality,  —  the  merit 
of  his  system  —  rests  on  the  further  conclusions 
which  he  drew  from  this  premise,  —  the  view  of 
life,  so  different  from  that  of  the  Cyrenaics,  which 
he  deduced  from  a  principle  common  to  both. 

If  pleasure  is  the  aim  which  philosophy  should 


EPICURUS.  35 

propose  to  itself,  then,  he  argued,  the  higher  and 
purer  the  pleasure,  the  more  completely  that  end 
is  attained.  All  pleasure  is  good  in  itself ;  but  we 
need  to  distinguish  between  such  as  are  permanent 
and  such  as  are  transient ;  between  those  which  are 
cheaply  won,  and  involve  no  unhappy  consequences, 
—  "Mirth  that  no  repentance  draws,"  —  and  those 
which  are  purchased  at  too  great  a  cost.  Sensual 
enjoyment  is  a  pleasure,  and  so  far  good.  But  if 
a  given  sensual  enjoyment  is  attended  by  evil  con- 
sequences, followed  by  pain,  whether  bodily  or 
mental,  it  ceases  to  be  a  means  of  happiness ;  it 
destroys  tranquillity  of  mind ;  it  is  a  misstep  in  the 
way  of  life,  a  miscalculation  of  the  supreme  good. 
It  follows  that  strict  temperance  is  an  indis- 
pensable condition  of  pleasure  in  the  Epicurean 
conception  of  that  end.  Aristippus  had  made 
pleasurable  excitement,  Kivrjat^,  the  highest  good  ; 
Epicurus  placed  it  in  the  KaTacrrTj/jbaTLKai  yhoval, 
the  sober  enjoyments  which  spring  from  modera- 
tion of  the  appetites. 

The  next  step  in  the  development  of  this  idea 
was  to  exalt  the  pleasures  of  the  mind,  intellectual 
and  moral  satisfactions,  above  sensual  delights  ; 
still  insisting  that  bodily  sensation  is  the  origin 
and  ground  of  all  our  feelings,  and  that  every 
mental  experience  of  joy  or  pain  must  be  referred 
to  the  body  at  last. 


36  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

"  Animi  voluptates  et  dolores,"  says  Cicero's  defender  of 
the  system,  "  nasci  fatemur  e  corporis  voluptatibus  et  dolo- 
ribus.  .  .  .  Quanquam  autem  et  Isetitiam  nobis  voluptas 
animi,  et  molestiam  dolor  afferat,  eorum  tamen  utrumque  et 
ortum  esse  e  corpore  et  ad  corpus  referri ;  nee  ob  earn  causam 
non  multo  majores  esse  et  voluptates  et  dolores  animi  quam 
corporis.  Nam  corpore  nihil  nisi  prsesens  et  quod  adest 
sentire  possumus,  animo  autem  et  pr?eterita  et  futura."  ^ 

Not  momentary  enjoyment,  but  permanent  well- 
being,  is  the  true  pleasure,  and  the  end  at  which 
philosophy  should   aim. 

Our  philosopher  furthermore  perceived  that  a 
virtuous  life  is  not  only  conducive,  but  essential, 
to  this  end.  You  cannot  live  happily,  except  you 
live  wisely,  honorably,  justly  ;  and,  conversely,  you 
cannot  live  wisely,  honorably,  justly,  without  living 
happily, — "  non  posse  jucunde  vivi,  nisi  sapienter, 
honeste,  justeque  vivatur,  nee  sapienter,  honeste, 
justeque  nisi  jucunde."  Thus  by  the  way  of  plea- 
sure, seeking  that  as  the  supreme  good,  he  arrives 
at  the  goal  which  other  systems  reach  by  a 
different  route,  and  finds  in  moral  rectitude  the 
true  solution  of  his  problem.  A  well-ordered  life 
is  the  answer  required  to  the  question  where  and 
how  to  win  the  satisfaction  which  instinct  prompts 
us  to  seek,  and  which  Nature  declares  to  be  the 
true  and  only  legitimate  end  of  all  seeking.  A 
well-ordered  life  must  be,  among  other  things,  a 

1  De  Finibus.  i.  17. 


EPICURUS.  *37 

moral  life.  Such  a  life  is  blessedness  :  and  that 
blessedness  is  capable  of  no  increase ;  duration 
adds  nothing  to  it.  Therefore,  on  ethical,  as  ^vell 
as  physical  grounds,  Epicurus  rejected  the  idea  of 
a  future  state.  A  blessed  life  is  sufficient  to  itself, 
an  end  in  itself.  Win  that,  and  we  have  nothing 
more  to  seek.  It  is  folly  to  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
disturbed  by  the  idea  of  death  ;  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  death.  So  long  as  we  are,  death  is  not ; 
and  when  death  is,  we  are  not. 

This  is  the  positive  side,  and  the  bright  side, 
of  the  system.  The  problem  proposed  is  happi- 
ness ;  the  solution  is  a  well-ordered,  temperate, 
upright  life.  But  the  Epicurean  principle  is  not 
exhausted ;  its  requirements  are  not  all  covered, 
by  this  solution.  A  well-ordered  life  is  happiness 
only  so  long  as  it  is  free  from  care  and  pain.  It 
still  remains  true  that  pleasure  is  the  only  and 
supreme  good,  and  that  all  pain,  all  solicitude, 
care,  anxiety,  whatever  mars  and  interrupts  plea- 
sure, is  an  evil  to  be  avoided,  —  exemption  from 
it  to  be  purchased  at  any  price.  From  which  it 
appears  that  Epicurean  virtue,  after  all,  is  merely 
negative,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  itself,  it  is  not  an 
end,  but  a  means  to  the  end  of  pleasure ;  and  if  a 
virtuous  act  is  attended  with  serious  inconven- 
ience, with  discomfort,  with  painful  effort  and 
sacrifice,  the  end  is  not  attained.     Then  virtue  is 


38  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

no  longer  a  means,  and  ceases  to  be  binding.  Be 
virtuous  so  far  as  virtue  consists  in  abstinence 
from  sin,  because  sin  brings  suffering.  Be  vir- 
tuous so  far  as  virtue  is  consistent  with  ease  and 
freedom  from  care  and  trouble,  but  no  farther; 
else  you  miss  the  end  for  which  virtue  alone  is 
desirable.  By  this  canon  all  heroic  undertakings, 
all  grave  responsibilities,  all  painful  sacrifices  are 
excluded  from  the  Epicurean  scheme  of  life.  The 
virtue  to  which  the  system  commends  us  is  nega- 
tive. Its  author  was  too  sagacious  not  to  perceive 
that  sensual  indulgence  would  cause  his  enterprise 
to  split  on  the  very  rock  he  wished  to  avoid,  — 
the  cravings  of  desire  causing  uneasiness  of  body 
and  mind.  His  aim  in  life  was  deliverance  from 
that  uneasiness,  —  the  greatest  possiljle  ease  of 
body  and  mind.  The  way  to  obtain  that  was  to 
have  as  few  wants  as  human  nature  will  allow; 
to  simplify  life  ;  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  all  de- 
sires that  depend  on  things  external  for  their 
gratification.  Appetite  is  insatiable ;  the  more 
we  attempt  to  gratify  it,  the  more  imperious  it 
becomes,  the  more  uneasiness  it  causes.  The 
better  way,  therefore,  is  not  to  attempt  to  gratify 
it,  but  rather  to  suppress  it,  to  aim  at  nothing 
outward,  to  strive  for  nothing,  to  desire  nothing. 
Injure  no  one ;  help  where  you  can ;  be  friendly 
and  humane.     But  do  not  go  abroad  for  satisfac- 


EPICURUS.  89 

tion ;  keep  yourself  aloof  from  public  life  and 
political  action. 

"In  des  Herzen's  heilig  stille  Raume 

Musst  du  flielien  aus  des  Leben's  Drang."  i 

This  is  the  meaning  of  the  \dOe  I^Lcoaa^^  —  a  car- 
dinal point  in  Epicurean  ethics.  Live  retired,  live 
to  yourself,  —  a  hidden  life  ;  avoid  care,  avoid  irri- 
tation, avoid  excitement,  avoid  ambition,  avoid 
desire ;  abstain  from  politics,  abstain  from  busi- 
ness, abstain  from  marriage,  live   single. 

"  Look  thou  not  on  Beauty's  charming ; 
Sit  thou  still  when  kings  are  arming  ; 
Taste  not  when  the  wine-cup  glistens  ; 
Speak  not  when  the  people  listens  ; 
Stop  thine  ear  against  the  singer  ; 
From  the  red  gold  keep  thy  finger ; 
Vacant  heart  and  hand  and  eye ;  — 
Easy  live,  and  quiet  die." 

This  is  the  sum  of  practical  wisdom.  If  pleasure 
is  the  only  good,  then  pain  of  all  kinds  is  evil ; 
and  trouble  is  pain,  and  care  is  pain.  Therefore 
abstain  from  all  pursuits,  decline  all  situations 
from  which  care  and  trouble  may  ensue. 

But  the  avenues  of  pain  are  many  ;  we  cannot 
command  them  all.  Do  the  best  that  we  may  to 
stave  off  suffering,  it  will  come  in  the  shape  of 
disease,  of  untoward  accident,  causing  bodily  tor- 
ment.     What   is   to   be   done   in  such   exigency  ? 

1  In  the  bosom's  holy,  still  seclusion 

Thou  must  hide  thee  from  the  busy  throng. 


40  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

Why,  then,  if  pain  unavoidable  gets  holds  of  us, 
we  are  to  make  light  of  it,  to  laugh  it  off,  —  a 
precept  which  Cicero  criticises  as  ridiculous  affec- 
tation, surpassing,  because  of  its  inconsistency 
with  the  ground-maxim  of  Epicurus,  the  pretence 
of  the  Stoics  that  pain  is  no  evil.  "  Neglige,  in- 
quit,  dolorem.  Quis  hoc  dicit  ?  Idem  qui  dolorem 
summum  malum.'*  ^ 

In  another  passage  of  the  same  treatise  he 
remarks  :  — 

"  Epicurus  says  things  which  seem  intended  to  provoke 
our  laughter.  He  affirms  in  a  certain  place  that  if  a  wise 
man  were  burned,  if  he  were  put  to  torture,  you  think 
he  is  going  to  say  he  shall  bear  it,  he  shall  endure  it,  he 
shall  not  succumb.  Greatly  to  be  commended,  such  a  sen- 
timent, by  Hercules,  and  worthy  of  Hercules  himself,  by 
whom  I  have  sworn.  But  this  is  not  enough  for  our 
rugged  and  severe  Epicurus.  If  a  wise  man  is  in  the  bull 
of  Phalaris,  he  must  say  :  '  How  pleasant  this  is  !  How 
little  I  care  for  it ! '  (Quam  suave  est  hoc  !  Quam  hoc  non 
euro !  Suave  etiam  !)  Pleasant  indeed  !  Is  it  little  to  say, 
It  is  not  bitter  1  Even  they  who  deny  that  pain  is  evil  do 
not  use  to  say  that  it  is  pleasant  to  be  tortured.  It  is 
hard,  it  is  difficulty  it  is  hateful,  it  is  against  Nature,  they 
say ;  and  yet  it  is  no  evil.  He  alone  who  says  that  pain  i3 
an  evil,  and  the  greatest  of  all  evils,  expects  his  wise  man 
to  call  it  pleasant.  (Hie  qui  solum  hoc  malum  dicit  et 
omnium  malorum  extremum,  sapientem  censet  id  suave 
dicturum.) "  ^ 

1  Tusculanae  Disputationes,  ii.  19.  2  ibid.,  11.  7. 


EPICURUS.  41 

Another  remedy  against  pain,  or  another  aid 
to  patient  endurance,  proposed  by  Epicurus,  is  the 
consideration  that  pain  long  continued  cannot  be 
extreme,  and  if  extreme  will  soon  terminate  in 
death  ;  which,  taken  in  connection  with  Epicurus' 
denial  of  divine  aid,  provokes  Plutarch  to  say :  — 

"  The  Epicureans  leave  themselves  nothing  to  turn  to  in 
their  adversity,  but  when  they  are  in  distress  look  only  to 
this  one  refuge  and  port,  —  dissolution  and  insensibility ; 
just  as  if  in  a  storm  or  tempest  at  sea  some  one,  to  hearten 
the  rest,  should  stand  up  and  say  to  them  •  '  Gentlemen, 
the  ship  hath  never  a  pilot  in  it,  nor  will  Castor  or  Pollux 
come  to  assuage  the  violence  of  the  beating  waves,  or  to 
lay  the  swift  career  of  the  winds ;  yet  I  can  assure  you 
that  there  is  nothing  at  all  to  be  dreaded  in  all  this,  for 
the  vessel  will  be  immediately  swallowed  up  by  the  sea, 
or  else  will  soon  fall  ott  md  be  dashed  in  pieces  against 
the  rocks.'  For  this  is  Epicurus's  way  of  discourse  to  per- 
sons under  grievous  distempers  and  excessive  pains.  Dost 
thou  hope  for  any  good  from  the  gods  for  thy  piety  1  It 
is  vanity ;  for  the  blessed  and  incorruptible  Being  is  not 
constrained  by  either  angers  or  kindnesses.  Dost  thou 
fancy  something  better  after  this  life  than  what  thou  hast 
here  1  Thou  dost  but  deceive  thyself,  for  what  is  dissolved 
hath  no  sense,  and  that  which  has  no  sense  is  nothing  to  us. 
Ay  !  but  how  comes  it  then,  my  good  friend,  that  you  bid 
me  eat  and  be  merry  %  Why,  by  Jove,'T3ecause  he  that 
is  in  a  great  storm  cannot  be  far  off  from  a  shipwreck, 
and  your  extreme  dolors  will  soon  land  you  on  death's 
strand."  ^ 

1  Plutarch's  Morals  (Old  English  Version,  London,  1694),  ii.  215. 


42  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

Some  striking  and  just  sentiments  Epicurus  de- 
duced from  his  principle ;  and  some  that  are  strik- 
ing and  not  just,  but  have  the  merit  of  an  honest 
consistency  ;  for  example  :  "  He  has  the  best  enjoy- 
ment of  riches  who  is  above  the  need  of  them." 
"  Poverty  conformed  to  the  law  of  nature  is  the  true 
riches."  "  He  who  desires  to  be  rich  will  best  ac- 
complish that  end,  not  by  adding  to  his  stores,  but 
by  diminishing  his  wants."  "  To  the  wise  man 
things  of  little  value  are  as  fruitful  sources  of  en- 
joyment as  the  most  costly."  "  A  past  good  is 
better  than  a  present,  because  it  is  no  longer  subject 
to  loss."  "  Pain  is  a  greater  evil  than  disgrace  ; 
disgrace  is  no  evil  unless  it  occasions  pain."  "  In 
ipso  dedecore  nihil  mali  nisi  sequantur  dolores."  ^ 
"  Right  and  wrong  are  empty  names ;  wrong-doing 
is  not  an  evil  in  itself,  but  evil  only  so  far  as  the 
doer  of  it  is  liable  to  be  found  out  and  punished," 
— 'H  dSiKia  ov  KaO^  iavrrju  KaKOv,  aXV  iv  rw  Kar* 
viro'^lav  (1)6/3(1)  el  fir)  \r)(T€L  virep  rwv  tolovtoov  e^e- 
(TTTjKOTa^  KoXaara^;?  Here  the  heathen  atheist's 
philosophy  coincides  with  that  of  a  well-known 
Christian  moralist,  an  archdeacon  of  the  English 
Church.  The  only  obligation  to  do  right  which 
Paley  acknowledges  is  that  derived  from  the  fear 
of  punishment  and  the  hope  of  reward  in  a  future 

^  Cicero :  Tusculanae  Disputationes,  ii.  12. 
2  Diogenes  Laertius,  151. 


EPICURUS.  43 

state.  Between  liim  and  our  philosopher  it  is 
simply  a   question   of   time. 

The  strongest  motive  recognized  by  Epicurean 
ethic,  stronger  even  than  the  love  of  pleasure,  is 
the  fear  of  pain :  stronger,  because  the  absence  of 
pain  is  esteemed  in  that  system  a  positive  good. 
The  only  use  its  author  could  see  in  government 
was  protection  against  evil.  Accordingly,  he  pre- 
ferred monarchy  to  all  other  forms  of  government 
because  it  is  the  strongest.  Friendship  itself, 
which  holds  so  high  a  place  in  his  theory  of  life, 
was  tainted  in  his  conception  with  this  utilitarian 
idea  of  mutual  protection. 

On  the  whole,  the  precepts  of  Epicurus,  though 
aiming  at  pleasure,  appear  on  closer  inspection, 
as  Seneca  remarks,  rather  sad  than  gay,  —  "  si 
propius  accesseris,  tristia ;  voluptas  enim  ilia  ad 
parvum  et  exile  revocatur."  ^ 

The  Epicureans,  like  the  Stoics,  loved  to  embody 
their  moral  sentiments  in  the  person  of  an  imagi- 
nary "  wise  man,"  whom  they  invested  with  all 
the  attributes  commended  by  that  philosophy. 

"The  wise  man,"  they  said,  *' lives,  like  the  gods,  a 
blessed  life,  lifted  above  the  power  of  Necessity  and  above 
the  freaks  of  Chance.  He  alone  has  attained  to  true  free- 
dom ;  for  the  service  of  Philosophy  is  freedom.  He  alone 
is  the  true  friend.     He  is  free  from  the  yoke  of  supersti- 

1  Seneca :  De  beata  vita,  c.  xiii. 


44  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

tiou  and  free  from  the  fear  of  death.  He  is  superior  to 
the  pains  of  the  body,  for  he  lives  in  an  element  of  per- 
petual calm.  His  will  is  subject  to  his  understanding,  and 
his  understanding  is  invulnerable  to  all  painful  thoughts 
and  the  miserable  cares  of  life ;  he  keeps  them  at  bay  by 
the  steady  contemplation  of  blessedness  past  and  to  come. 
He  knows  moreover  that  all  suffering  ends  with  death, 
and  will  not  hesitate,  when  pain  becomes  intolerable,  of 
his  own  free-will  to  quit  this  life,  —  non  dubitat,  si  ita 
melius  sit,  migrare  de  vita."  ^ 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  brief  sketch  how  nearly 
in  some  points  the  Epicurean  philosophy  coincides 
with  the  Stoic.  Both  systems  agreed  in  their  ideal 
of  a  self-sufticing  freedom  of  mind,  an  immovable 
calmness  of  soul,  an  ever-growing  indifference  to 
fortune.  Both  agreed  in  the  contemplation  of  a 
blessedness  consisting  neither  in  sensual  delights 
nor  worldly  goods,  but  in  peace  of  mind.  Both 
insi«sted  on  the  absolute  dominion  of  reason  over 
sense  and  passion.  In  both  systems  freedom, 
virtue,  and  blessedness  were  inseparably  con- 
nected. The  disciples  of  both  were  exhorted 
to  retire  from  the  world  and  seek  refuge  in  the 
realms  of  thought.  But,  agreeing  so  far,  they  dif- 
fered —  how  wddely !  —  in  the  fundamental  idea  on 
which  they  based  their  requirements.  The  foun- 
dation of  the  Stoic  was  fortitude  and  virtue  for 
virtue's  sake ;  that  of  the  Epicurean  was  temper- 
ance for  the  sake  of  enhanced  pleasure. 
1  Cicero :  De  Finibus,  i.  19. 


EPICURUS.  45 

"The  Stoic  regarded  man  as  belonging  to  a  higher 
order,  to  whose  service  he  was  bound,  and  in  serving 
whom  he  might  become  free ;  the  Epicurean,  whose  athe- 
istic principles  gave  no  assurance  of  any  such  order,  was 
left  without  a  hold  and  without  a  hope  beyond  the 
sensible  world."  ^ 

The  popular  judgment  —  and  in  this  instance  it 
is  a  very  correct  one  —  of  the  value  of  this  system 
is  expressed  in  the  very  word  "  Epicurean  "  as  com- 
monly understood.  It  is  true  the  common  under- 
standing does  not  accurately  represent  the  idea  and 
purpose  of  its  founder;  but  it  does  represent  the 
natural  and  inevitable  tendency  of  that  philosophy. 
The  signification  which  the  w^ord  has  assumed  in 
popular  speech  is  a  testimony  and  a  judgment. 
What  is  it,  then,  that  is  popularly  understood  by 
Epicurean  ?  Nothing  lofty,  you  will  say,  nothing 
heroic,  nothing  that  commands  our  respect,  but 
refined  self-indulgence,  the  tasteful,  considerate 
gratification  of  those  desires  which  have  self  for 
their  end.  When  we  say  "  Stoic,"  we  mean  some- 
thing vigorous,  manly,  noble,  sublime ;  stern  it 
may  be,  but  heroic.  When  we  say  "  Epicurean," 
we  mean  something  soft,  luxurious,  effeminate, 
timid,  otiose.  Both  systems  are  Socratic  in  their 
origin,  —  schemes  of  practical  wisdom ;   both  pro- 

^  See  Ersch  und  Gruber,  art.  Epikouros,  to  which  I  am  largely 
indebted. 


46  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

posed  to  themselves  substantially  the  same  prob- 
lem. The  goal  for  each  was  a  blessed  life,  the 
highest  attainable  good.  The  Stoic  conceived  it  as 
ideal  virtue ;  the  Epicurean  conceived  it  as  ideal 
pleasure.  The  former  sought  it  in  defying  harm, 
the  latter  in  escaping  harm ;  the  one  in  the  con- 
quest of  self,  the  other  in  self-indulgence. 

As  a  theory  of  enjoyment,  if  that  were  the  sum 
of  a  blessed  life,  the  Epicurean  philosophy  was 
subtle  and  wise.  In  one  sense  it  may  be  said  that 
men  seek  enjoyment  in  every  pursuit,  the  hero 
and  the  voluptuary  alike ;  that  is,  they  seek  satis- 
faction. But  satisfaction  how  differently  conceived 
and  pursued!  What  constitutes  satisfaction  with 
one  is  no  satisfaction  at  all  to  another.  The  satis- 
faction of  Epicurus  consisted  in  spending  tranquil 
hours  of  philosophic  converse  in  a  garden.  The 
satisfaction  of  Vitellius  consisted  in  gorging  him- 
self with  dainties,  regardless  of  expense ;  the  satis- 
faction of  St.  Simeon  consisted  in  living  on  the 
top  of  a  column  too  narrow  for  repose,  encoun- 
tering without  shelter  all  heats  and  rigors  of  the 
sky.  The  satisfaction  of  Arnold  of  Winkelried 
consisted  in  making  his  body  a  target  for  Austrian 
lances ;  the  satisfaction  of  Arnold  of  Connecticut 
consisted  in  selling  his  country  to  the  enemy.  To 
say  that  pleasure  is  the  supreme  good  is  saying 
nothing  until  pleasure  is  defined.     To  define  it  in 


EPICURUS.  47 

the  Epicurean  sense  of  tranquillity  and  ease  is 
to  limit  human  nature  by  the  paltriest  bounds  ;  it 
is  to  strike  from  the  ranks  of  the  wise  the  great 
army  of  those  on  whose  efforts  and  sacrifices 
human  well-being  mainly  depends,  to  whose  ef- 
forts it  is  due  that  the  Epicurean  can  enjoy  that 
ease  which  constitutes  for  him  the  end  of  life. 
Where  would  the  world  be  at  this  moment  if 
the  Epicurean  philosophy  had  always  and  every- 
where prevailed ;  if  everywhere  men  had  consulted 
their  own  ease,  and  made  enjoyment  their  only 
aim  ?  There  must  be  sacrifice  somewhere,  and  an 
unepicurean  spirit,  to  keep  the  world  alive. 

But  setting  aside  this  objection  drawn  from  the 
consideration  of  the  general  good,  putting  social 
well-being  out  of  the  question,  view  the  matter  in 
relation  to  the  individual  only ;  say  the  individual 
has  nothing  to  do  with  social  ends,  that  his  busi- 
ness is  to  take  care  of  himself :  is  this  the  best 
that  man  can  attain  —  a  life  exempt  from  care  and 
pain  ?  Does  it  satisfy  our  idea  of  life  and  man  ? 
Suppose  that  exemption  attainable,  it  surely  is  not 
the  best.  There  is  a  satisfaction  which  life  con- 
ducted on  Epicurean  principles  can  never  know, 
—  the  satisfaction  which  springs  from  success  in 
some  great  work  or  noble  endeavor,  the  satisfac- 
tion which  lies  in  the  consciousness  of  having 
accomplished  something  worthy  and  good.     Kepler 


48  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

at  the  close  of  those  labors  which  determined  the 
laws  of  the  planetary  motions ;  Washington  resign- 
ing his  commission  at  the  close  of  the  war  of  the 
Revolution ;  Clarkson,  after  twenty  years  of  un- 
ceasing effort,  witnessing  in  the  House  of  Lords 
the  passage  of  the  bill  for  the  abolition  of  the 
slave-trade,  —  these  and  the  like  of  these  teach  us 
the  use  and  the  meaning  of  life. 

The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits.  Other  schools 
of  philosophy,  whatever  the  errors  with  which  they 
are  chargeable,  have  the  merit  at  least  of  having 
sent  forth  into  the  world  some  great  and  noble 
characters  by  whom  the  world  has  been  instructed 
and  blest.  But  what,  if  we  except  some  volumes 
of  poetry,  what  has  the  Epicurean  produced  that 
has  earned  or  deserves  the  thanks  of  mankind  ? 
Out  of  that  garden  which  bore  the  inscription, 
"  Here  pleasure  is  the  supreme  good,"  nothing  ijet- 
ter  than  the  love  of  pleasure  could  ever  proceed, 
nothing  better  could  it  ever  attract.  "  But  out 
of  the  school  of  Epicurus,"  says  Plutarch,  "  and 
from  among  those  that  follow  his  doctrine,  1  will 
not  ask  what  tyrant-killer  has  proceeded,  nor  yet 
what  man  valiant  and  victorious  ni  feats  of  arms, 
what  lawgiver,  what  prince,  what  counsellor,  what 
governor  of  the  people.  Neither  will  I  demand 
who  of  them  has  been  tormented  or  died  for 
supporting  of  right  and  justice ;    but  who  of  all 


EPICURUS.  49 

these  sages  has  for  the  benefit  and  service  of  his 
country  undertaken  so  much  as  a  voyage  at  sea, 
gone  of  an  embassy,  or  expended  a  sum  of 
money."  ^ 

So  far  and  no  farther  could  Athenian  atheism 
reach  with  its  precepts.  Its  purest  product  was 
Epicurean  wisdom ;  and  in  that  there  was  no 
power  to  lift  a  man  above  himself,  nothing  of  the 
spirit  that  overcomes  the  Avorld,  no  adequate  inter- 
pretation, much  less  satisfaction,  of  the  wants  of 
man.  The  school  of  Epicurus  is  long  since  ex- 
tinct, but  the  Epicurean  mind  survives  ;  it  prevails 
at  this  moment  as  widely  perhaps  as  in  any  past 
age.  Something  of  the  Garden  cleaves  to  our 
time.  Our  very  reforms  betray  it ;  our  philoso- 
phies are  steeped  in  it.  Carlyle  alone,  the  Cato 
Censor  of  the  century,  is  uncorrupted  by  it.  Uni- 
versal relaxation  of  discipline,  abolition  of  all 
pain,  retribution  ignored,  all  strengths  and  aus- 
terities ruled  out  of  life ;  softness  in  legislation 
and  education,  general  amnesty  of  treasons  and 
rascalities  m  this  world,  indiscriminate  and  uncon- 
ditional bestowal  of  bliss  in  the  next,  —  behold  the 
spirit  and  creed  of  our  day !  As  a  counterpoise 
10  tliis  daintiness  and  dissoluteness  of  theory  and 
practice,  one  is  tempted  to  oppose  the  bracing- 
rigor  of  the  Porch.     The  world  is  no  garden,  and 

.  1  Plutarch  against  Colotes.     Old  English  Version. 
4 


50  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

life  no  lullaby  of  endless  blandishments.  The  indi- 
vidual, if  he  means  to  grow  into  a  consummate 
spirit,  must  pass  through  wars  and  fightings  to 
inward  peace,  must  struggle  up  through  want  and 
weakness  and  bitter  pain  to  light  and  freedom. 

"  Mortal  that  standest  on  a  point  of  time, 

With  an  eternity  on  either  hand, 
Thou  hast  one  duty  above  all  sublime, 

Where  thou  art  placed,  serenely  there  to  stand. 
'  T  is  well  in  deeds  of  good,  tho'  small,  to  thrive, 

'Tis  well  some  part  of  ill,  tho'  small,  to  cure, 
'Tis  well  with  onward,  upward  hope  to  strive ; 

Yet  better  and  diviner  to  endure." 


^^-!?r 


,j?n'^ 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER,  51 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER. 

"\ /FY  first  example  of  philosophic  atheism  was 
drawn  from  the  schools  of  ancient  wisdom. 
I  have  spoken  of  Epicurus,  a  founder  of  one  of 
those  schools,  a  member  of  the  great  Socratic 
movement  which  survived  the  edict  of  Justinian, 
which  passed  into  Christian  history  through  Ara- 
bian savans,  and  spent  itself  in  mediaeval  scholas- 
ticism. My  second  example  shall  be  a  modern,  a 
philosopher  of  this  century,  a  member  of  the  Kan- 
tian movement,  a  name  of  note  in  metaphysic, — 
Arthur  Schopenhauer.  I  select  this  German  partly 
as  being  the  only  modern  atheist  who  seems  to  me 
really  profound,  and  partly  because  of  the  points 
of  contrast  between  him  and  Epicurus,  showing 
the  range  of  the  atheistic  mind.  The  contrast  is 
striking.  Epicurus  was  a  flat  materialist ;  Scho- 
penhauer an  out-and-out  idealist.  Epicurus  was 
an  optimist;  Schopenhauer  a  pessimist.  Epicurus 
was  sunny-tempered,  bland,  humane  ;  Schopenhauer 
was  a  cynic  and  malcontent.  Epicurus  gathered 
his  followers  around  him  in  a  garden,  and  invited 
the  world  to  partake  of  his  cheer ;  Schopenhauer 
shut  himself  up  in  a  German  Studierzimmer,  and 
wreaked  with  curses  on  the  world  his  spite  at  the 


62  PHILOSOPHIC   ATHEISM. 

world's  neglect  of  his  wisdom.  Epicurus  despised 
and  decried  all  learning  ;  Schopenhauer  was  richly, 
widely,  profoundly  learned.  Epicurus  exhorts  us 
to  make  the  most  of  life  ;  Schopenhauer  teaches 
that  renunciation  of  the  will  to  live  is  the  true 
wisdom.  Epicurus  lived  abstemiously,  and  taught 
that  pleasure  is  man's  chief  end ;  Schopenliauer 
lived  daintily,  and  taught  that  the  end  of  man  is 
suffering. 

Arthur,  son  of  Hcinrich  Floris  and  Johanna 
Henrietta  Schopenhauer,  was  born  at  Danzig,  in 
East  Prussia,  an  important  seaport  of  the  Baltic,  on 
the  22d  of  February,  1788.  He  should  have  been  a 
native  of  England,  to  which  country  his  father,  an 
ardent  lover  of  liberty  and  of  English  institutions, 
had  repaired  with  that  intent ;  but  the  ilhicss  of 
the  mother  compelled  them  to  return  before  the 
expected  birth.  It  could  not  be  that  a  Kantian 
should  be  born  out  of  Germany.  The  name  Arthur 
was  given  him  with  a  view  to  mercantile  life  ; 
it  was  a  name  which  foreign  correspondents  would 
not  need  to  translate,  being  in  all  European  lan- 
guages the  same.  A  portion  of  his  bojdiood  was 
spent  in  France,  and  a  portion  in  England  ;  whereby 
the  foundation  was  laid  of  a  thorough  acquaint- 
ance with  the  languages  of  those  countries,  which, 
together  with  Italian,  he  spoke  with  fluency  in 
after  years.    In  spite  of  his  earnest  remonstrance 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  53 

and  avowed  preference  for  the  life  of  a  scholar,  the 
father,  himself  a  merchant,  having  changed  his 
residence  from  Danzig  to  Hamburg,  placed  him,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen,  in  a  counting-room  in  that 
city,  and  commended  him  to  Senator  Genisch  for 
thorough  commercial  training.  But  a  better  for- 
tune, or  one  more  accordant  with  his  wishes, 
awaited  him.  The  father  died.  The  widowed 
young  mother  (much  younger  than  her  husband), 
suddenly  discovering  in  herself  a  literary  vocation, 
or,  at  any  rate,  embracing  one  which  she  had  not 
dared  to  indulge  while  her  husband  lived,  removed 
with  her  daughter  Adele  to  Weimar,  then  the 
Athens  of  Germany,  and  entered  the  career  of 
authoress.  She  wrote  and  published  an  intermin- 
able series  of  novels  and  tales.  I  suppose  they 
found  readers,  seeing  she  persisted  to  write  them. 
I  remember  to  have  seen  the  backs  of  the  volumes 
in  the  circulating  libraries,  long  rows  of  duode- 
cimos, —  "  Romane  von  Johanna  Schopenhauer."  I 
fancy  they  are  not  there  now.  Arthur,  still  a 
minor,  left  behind  in  Hamburg,  solicited  and  finally 
obtained  permission  to  study,  studiere7i,  —  what 
we  call  going  to  college.  Like  a  harrier  unken- 
nelled, he  rushed  to  books,  —  Latin,  Greek,  mathe- 
matics. He  crammed  at  Gotha  under  Doring  and 
Jacobs,  afterward  at  Weimar  under  Passow ;  and 
at   the   age    of    twenty-one   was    matriculated    as 


54  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

student  of  medicine  at  Gottingen,  then  the  first 
university  in  Germany.  His  life  there  was  stu- 
dious, quiet,  and  somewhat  recluse.  He  is  said 
to  have  had  but  two  intimate  companions,  —  one 
was  the  late  Baron  Bunsen;  the  other  you  would 
not  easily  guess :  it  was  Mr.  William  B.  Astor,  of 
New  York,  the  long-surviving  leaf  of  this  strange 
trefoil.  He  afterward  studied  at  Berlin,  where  he 
heard,  among  other  celebrities,  Fichte,  wlio  some- 
what disappointed  his  eager  longing.  His  doctor's 
degree  —  not  doctor  of  medicine,  but  doctor  of  phi- 
losophy —  he  sought  and  obtained  at  Jena.  His 
thesis  on  this  occasion,  —  his  first  philosophical 
work,  —  was  entitled  :  "  Ueber  die  vierfache  Wurzel 
des  Satzes  vom  zureichendem  Grunde  "  ("  Concern- 
ing the  Fourfold  Root  of  the  Proposition  of  the 
Sufficient  Cause").  The  sufficient  cause  is  that 
whereby  anything  must  rather  be  than  not  be ; 
according  to  the  formula,  "  Nihil  est  sine  ration  o 
cur  potius  sit  quam  non  sit."  This  proposition, 
according  to  Schopenhauer,  has  four  roots,  —  caus- 
ality, reason,  intuition,  will.  With  the  pride  of  a 
young  author  in  his  first  publication,  Schopenhauer 
handed  a  copy  to  his  mother.  She,  with  the  insight 
of  the  librarian  who  assigned  a  treatise  on  Hebrew 
roots  to  the  department  of  botany,  looking  at  the 
title,  was  struck  with  the  word  Wurzel.  She  could 
make  nothing  of  it  but  that  it  was  some  kind  of 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  55 

root.  "  Root !  "  she  said  ;  "  that  is  something  for 
the  apothecaries."  It  was  not  a  very  flattering 
welcome  to  a  young  writer  just  entering  his 
philosophical  career.  But  he  consoled  himself 
with  thinking  that  his  root  would  flourish  when 
not  a  novel  of  hers  should  be  extant. 

The  Hofrathin  Schopenhauer  gave  weekly  recep- 
tions to  the  literati  of  Weimar,  by  means  of  which 
Arthur  made  the  acquaintance  of  Goethe,  from 
whom  he  received,  as  he  confessed,  his  second  edu- 
cation, although  the  difference  in  their  ages  was 
nearly  forty  years.  Goethe  at  this  time  was  smart- 
ing with  the  cold  reception  given  to  his  Farhen- 
leJire,  —  his  theory  of  colors,  —  based,  in  opposition 
to  Newton,  on  the  assumed  homogeneity  of  light. 
Schopenhauer  was  induced  to  study  optics  under 
Goethe's  guidance,  for  the  sake  of  a  common  in- 
terest. He  adopted  the  conclusions  of  his  master 
respecting  the  genesis  of  the  so-called  physical 
colors,  but  maintained  at  the  same  time,  with  due 
independence,  that  the  Farhenlehre  was  not  a  com- 
plete optical  theory  ;  that  should  be  physiological. 

In  1814  he  removed  to  Dresden,  where  he  made 
the  acquaintance,  among  other  men  of  note,  with 
Tieck,  the  head  of  the  romantic  school,  and  where 
he  composed  his  chief  work,  "  The  World  as  Will 
and  Presentment."  As  soon  as  the  manuscript  was 
placed  ^1  the  hands  of  the  publisher,  he  started 


56  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

on  a  tour  of  recreation  in  Italy,  and  visited  the 
memorable  places  in  that  comitry,  which  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  language  and  his  general  culture  ena- 
bled him  to  enjoy  as  none  ever  can  without  those 
advantages.  This  was  the  brightest  page  in  his 
history ;  through  life  he  recurred  to  it  with  fond 
recollection,  and  softened  whenever  he  spoke  of 
his  Italian  tour.  The  news  of  the  failure  of  the 
mercantile  house  at  Danzig  in  which  his  mother 
had  invested  the  greater  part  of  her  own  and 
her  daughter's  property,  recalled  him  to  Ger- 
many. With  characteristic  caution,  mistrusting 
his  mother's  management,  he  had  previously  sepa- 
rated his  portion  of  the  estate  and  made  his  own 
investments.  He  was  therefore  only  so  far  a  loser 
by  this  failure  as  his  hereditary  prospects  were 
concerned.  Nevertheless  he  judged  it  expedient 
to  look  about  for  some  additional  means  of  main- 
tenance ;  for  though  his  patrimony,  so  long  as  he 
enjoyed  it  without  matrimony,  sufficed  for  that  end, 
some  unforeseen  accident  might  deprive  him  of  his 
income.  The  only  occu])ation  which  seemed  con- 
sistent with  his  training  was  that  of  a  university 
professor,  if  such  a  post  could  be  secured.  With 
the  hope  of  promotion  to  the  chair  just  vacated  by 
the  death  of  Solger,  he  obtained  the  venia  docendi 
in  Berlin,  and  began  lecturing  on  philosophy.  But 
the  venia  docendi  is  accompanied  by  no  salary ;  it 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  57 

yields  no  remuneration  beyond  the  fees  required 
of  students  who  may  choose  to  attend  the  lectures. 
The  students  did  not  come  in  numbers  sufficient 
to  make  the  thing  profitable.  Hegel  had  the  field 
and  the  prestige.  Who  cared  to  hear  philosophy  in 
Berlin  from  any  but  Hegel  ?  The  chair  of  Solger 
was  filled  by  another.  Schopenhauer  had  no  fol- 
lowing. He  went  to  Italy  once  more ;  then  re- 
turned to  Berlin,  and  tried  lecturing  again,  with  no 
better  success.  It  was  a  bitter  disappointment,  and 
poisoned  all  his  future.  Under  the  cold  stone  of 
that  defeat  he  got  "  sweltering  venom  "  enough  to 
last  him  a  lifetime.  Meanwhile  his  great  work, 
his  ''  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,"  had  proved 
a  dead  failure ;  it  was  so  much  waste  paper  (jnacu- 
latur)  on  the  booksellers'  hands.  In  Germany 
it  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  none  but  a 
university  professor  can  write  books  of  philosophy 
or  science  worthy  of  notice.  The  learned  world, 
the  university  world,  exists,  or  did  then  exist,  apart 
from  the  general  public.  Only  what  that  world 
produced  of  a  scientific  kind  it  honored ;  outside 
was  the  Galilee  from  which  ariseth  no  prophet. 
The  charge  which  Schopenhauer  urges  of  conscious, 
wilful,  concerted  suppression  of  his  name  is  pure 
absurdity.  The  neglect  is  sufficiently  explained  by 
preoccupation.  The  philosophic  interest  of  the  time 
was  monopolized,  absorbed,  by  Hegel ;  and  though 


58  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

Hegel  himself  had  insisted  that  philosophy  is  not 
any  one  system,  but  all  systems,  his  German  con- 
temporaries and  the  next  generation  were  some- 
how made  to  believe  that  with  him  the  books  were 
closed,  the  canon  complete,  the  last  word  spo- 
ken. There  were  some  exceptions ;  the  work  was 
not  absolutely  without  any  recognition.  Herbart, 
one  of  the  dii  majores  of  philosophy,  acknowledged 
its  distinguished  ability  ;  and  Jean  Paul,  one  of 
the  Olympians  of  literature,  praised  its  profundity, 
though  gloomy  as  the  Norway  pool  on  whose  dark 
depths  no  sun  ever  smiles.  But  on  the  whole  the 
book  was  for  the  time  a  failure.  The  hope  of  his 
life  seemed  quenched  in  oblivion.  His  heart  was 
shrivelled  by  the  blow.  Not  only  the  academic, 
but  the  literary  career  had  failed.  Still  he  lin- 
gered in  Berlin,  nursing  his  wrath,  irresolute,  until 
one  day,  the  cholera  entering  the  city  at  one  gate, 
he  made  his  escape  through  another,  and  never 
rested  till  he  reached  Frankfort  on  the  Maine, 
where  he  established  himself  as  misanthrope  for 
the  remainder  of  his  life,  and  where  he  died  on  the 
22d  of  September,  1860. 

One  would  think  that  a  man  just  entering  on 
the  forties,  with  an  independent  fortune,  sound 
health,  a  well-stored  mind,  extraordinary  intellec- 
tual powers,  and  no  cares,  might  manage  to  lead 
a  happy  and  useful  life.     Seldom  in  the  turns  and 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER.  59 

combinations  of  fortune  has  any  one  chanced  on  so 
fair  a  lot.  But  in  human  life  the  spirit  and  the 
lot  are  seldom  well  matched  ;  or  rather,  they  are 
so  matched  that  the  chance  of  happiness  is  equal 
for  all.  The  literary  career  was  not  closed,  though 
he  chose  to  think  so.  His  first  attempt  had 
failed  ;  so  has  that  of  many  a  man  who  came  to 
be  famous  at  last.  He  had  but  to  try  again  and ' 
again.  Luck  may  rule  the  hour,  but  merit  wins 
the  final  crown ;  intellectual  overweight  tells  in 
the  end.  A  hearing  once  obtained,  his  forgotten 
first  work  would  be  fished  out  of  the  dust-heap  and 
receive  its  dues.  But  Schopenhauer  had  not  the 
morale  for  this ;  his  morale  was  defective  at  the 
root.  He  had  neither  industry,  nor  courage,  nor 
faith,  nor  patience;  nothing  wherewith  to  right 
himself  after  that  first  defeat.  It  was  a  clear  case 
of  a  man  of  exceptional  intellect  failing  from  moral 
defect ;  not,  as  often  happens,  from  the  bondage  of 
appetite,  but  from  want  of  heart.  Emerson  says 
our  success  is  through  the  affections.  Schopen- 
hauer was  a  signal  illustration  of  the  truth  of  tliat 
remark.  There  was  a  root  of  bitterness  in  him 
which  poisoned  all  the  springs  of  life.  He  sulked 
like  a  child  in  a  pet.  If  men  would  not  read,  he 
would  not  write;  and  for  twenty  years  he  wrote 
nothing.  Twenty  unproductive  years  incorporated 
in  the  body  of  his  life  !    It  must  not  be  supposed 


60  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

that  all  this  while  he  lived  a  recluse.  He  made 
the  most  of  the  good  things  of  this  world.  He 
had*  comfortable  lodgings,  dined  every  day  at  the 
table  d'hote  of  the  HOtel  d'Angleterre,  where  they 
have  his  portrait  still  hanging,  and  he  carefully 
nursed  his  estate. 

He  had  inculcated  as  a  cardinal  point  of  prac- 
tical philosophy  the  "  abnegation  of  the  will  to 
live  ;  "  but  never  did  mortal  cling  to  life  with  more 
desperate  tenacity.  He  had  what  Lamb  calls  ''  an 
intolerable  disinclination  to  dying."  He  lived  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  alarm.  Fear  of  small-pox  drove 
him  from  Naples ;  fear  of  the  cholera  drove  liim 
from  Berlin.  In  Verona  he  was  haunted  by  the 
fear  that  he  had  taken  poisoned  snuff.  He  never 
went  to  bed  without  dagger  and  pistol  by  his  side, 
and  started  at  every  unusual  noise.  He  took  ex- 
traordinary precautions  against  infection,  hiding 
the  mouthpiece  of  his  pipe  during  his  absence  from 
his  chambers,  and  would  never  trust  himself  to  the 
hands  of  a  barber.  Fear  of  robbery  impelled  him 
to  label  as  medicines  the  parcels  containing  his 
valuables,  or  to  label  them  in  foreign  tongues. 
Hints  in  his  will  were  written  in  Latin,  his  ex- 
pense-book was  kept  in  English,  and  his  coupons 
stowed  away  in  the  envelopes  of  letters. 

Though  he  would  not  write  for  the  public,  it  was 
impossible  for  a  man  so  cultured  and  endowed  to 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  61 

abstain  from  books.  He  read  and  studied,  accu- 
mulated a  large  library,  and  filled  many  notebooks 
with  memoranda  and  wise  remarks. 

His  discourse  could  be  brilliant  when  he  found 
an  appreciative  ear.  Foucher  de  Careil,  a  sufficient 
judge,  celebrates  his  rare  conversational  powers. 
The  guests  at  the  table  cVlwte  lingered  over  their 
dessert,  enchained  by  the  eloquence  with  which  he 
dispensed  the  rich  stores  of  his  knowledge.  But 
sometimes  other  topics  got  the  floor ;  army  officers 
and  young  gallants  would  have  it  their  own  way. 
Then  he  would  lay  down  a  gold  piece  by  the  side 
of  his  plate :  the  poor  should  have  it  if  the  gentle- 
men opposite  would  start  some  other  topic  besides 
women  and  horses. 

His  character,  as  sketched  by  his  friend  Dr. 
Gwinner,  is  not  altogether  lovely.  A  rough  cyni- 
cism seems  to  have  been  its  prevailing  trait.  It  is 
a  relief  to  know  that  he  gave  liberally  in  the  way 
of  alms,  although  so  careful  a  manager  of  his 
funds.  An  ingrained,  incorruptible  honesty  must 
be  conceded  to  him.  He  was  not  likely  under 
ordinary  temptation  to  commit  a  base  or  bad  act ; 
nor  had  he  any  vices  in  the  common  acceptation 
of  the  term.  But  wrath  and  bitterness  and  evil- 
speaking  were  the  settled  habit  of  his  life.  A 
misanthrope  by  profession,  he  pretended  to  dis- 
tinguish   between    ixicrdv6pwiro<^    and    Karacppovdv- 


62  PHILOSOPHIC   ATHEISM. 

6p(07ro<;^  man-hater  and  man-clespiser,  disclaiming 
for  himself  the  former,  but  freely  avowing  the 
latter,  —  which  it  seems  to  me  is  the  greater  sin 
of  the  two.  Man-despiser  he  professed  to  be.  We 
cannot  liate,  he  said,  w^hat  we  altogether  despise. 
He  even  blamed  himself  for  want  of  thoroughness 
in  that  particular.  He  had  never  been  able,  he 
said,  to  maintain  an  adequate  idea  of  the  baseness 
of  human  nature. 

He  did  not  wish  to  be  loved  by  his  fellow-men, 
for  in  order  to  be  loved  by  them  one  must  be  like 
them  ;  which  God  forbid  !  Wliat  had  he  in  common 
with  them  ?  When  the  cat  is  a  kitten,  she  plays 
with  little  paper-balls  ;  she  imagines  that  they  are 
alive,  and  like  herself.  When  she  is  old,  she  knows 
better,  and  lets  them  lie.  Such  had  been  his  ex* 
perience  with  the  bipeds.  He  was  a  woman-hater, 
and  gloried  in  his  celibacy.  The  so-called  "  career  " 
of  most  young  men,  he  said,  ends  in  their  becom- 
ing beasts  of  burden  to  a  woman.  The  married 
man  bears  the  full  burden  of  life,  the  unmarried 
but  half.  All  genuine  philosophers  had  been  celi- 
bate,—  Descartes,  Leibniz,  Malebranche,  Spinoza, 
Kant.  The  ancients  are  not  to  be  taken  into 
the  account,  because  women  with  them  occupied  a 
subordinate  position.  Moreover,  Socrates'  matri- 
monial experience  did  not  recommend  the  nuptial 
state  to  scholars.     He  quotes  Petrarch  :  "  Quisquis 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER.  63 

requiem  qugeris,  feminam  cave,  perpetuam  officinam 
litium  ac  laborum." 

To  contempt  of  humankind  he  added  an  im- 
mense conceit  of  his  own  philosophic  importance. 
He  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  himself  the  fore- 
most philosopher  of  his  time.  Indeed  he  seems  to 
have  regarded  himself  as  surpassing  in  acumen  the 
philosophers  of  all  time.  ^'I  have  lifted  farther 
than  any  mortal  before  me,"  he  said,  "  the  veil  of 
truth ;  but  I  would  like  to  see  the  man  who  can 
boast  of  having  had  a  more  wretched  set  of  con- 
temporaries than  I,"  —  meaning  Schelling  and 
Hegel,  and  the  philosophic  and  learned  world  of 
his  day.  Kant  he  professed  to  hold  in  high 
esteem  ;  but  all  subsequent  philosophers  he  treated 
with  unmeasured  contempt.  I  have  alluded  to  his 
charge  of  a  conspiracy  to  shut  him  out  from  public 
notice.  He  actually  believed  that  the  university 
philosophers  were  afraid  of  him, —  were  afraid  that 
if  he  came  to  be  known  they  would  fall  at  once 
into  hopeless  neglect,  and  therefore  had  combined 
to  suppress  him!  And  how  he  chuckles  at  their 
defeat  when,  in  his  latter  years,  he  began  to  emerge 
a  little  from  his  long  obscurity  !  "  Their  Caspar 
Hauser,"  he  says,  "  has  escaped,  in  spite  of  their 
machinations."  "  I  am  read,  and  shall  continue  to 
be  read  ;  legor  et  legarP 

His   admirer  and  sycophant,  Frauenstadt,  has 


64  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

filled  many  pages  with  Schopenhauer's  abuse  of 
the  post-Kantian  philosophers,  —  an  interesting 
study  for  those  who  are  curious  in  the  rhetoric  of 
vituperation. 

"  111  the  period  wliicli  intervenes  between  Kant  and 
myself,  there  is  no  philosophy,  nothing  but  university  char- 
latanism. .  .  .  Fichte  made  one  great  discovery,  —  that 
of  the  niaiserie  of  the  Germans,  in  virtue  of  which,  when 
any  one  boldly  babbles  sheer  nonsense,  for  fear  of  compro- 
mising their  intellectual  credit  they  set  it  down,  as  un- 
fathomable profundity;  whereby  a  philosophic  reputation 
is  soon  acquired,  which,  once  established,  lasts  until  some 
thinker  revises  the  acts.  After  Fichte,  Schelling  improved 
the  discovery  witli  great  personal  advantage.  But  it  was 
reserved  for  Hegel  to  carry  it  to  its  full  extent.  He  made 
such  thorough  use  of  it  that  nothing  remains  for  any  who 
come  after.  ...  To  mystify  men  you  have  only  to  say 
something  of  which  all  they  know  is  that  they  don't  un- 
derstand it.  Then  the  Germans  especially,  who  are  good- 
natured  and  honest,  immediately  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  fault  is  in  their  own  understanding,  in  which  secretly 
they  have  no  great  confidence  ;  and  their  surest  way  to 
conceal  the  shame  of  not  understanding  is  to  join  loudly 
in  the  praise  of  the  unintelligible  wisdom,  whereby  its 
authority  becomes  more  and  more  imposing." 

Fichte  and  Schelling  he  regards  as  sufficiently 
contemptible  ;  but  the  special  and  chief  mark  of  his 
polemic  is  Hegel,  whom  he  cannot  name  without 
malediction.  He  finds  a  fit  motto  for  Hegelian  phil- 
osophy in  "•  Cymbeline  :  "    "  Such  stuff  as  madmen 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER.  Q5 

tongue  and  brain  not."  He  sees  but  one  use  which 
that  philosophy  can  possibly  serve.  Guardians 
sometimes  find  their  wards  too  intelligent  for  their 
purposes.  Let  the  inconveniently  bright  youths  be 
made  to  study  Hegel ;  they  will  soon  be  reduced 
to  any  required  degree  of  stupidity. 

The  accusation  of  charlatanism  which  Scho- 
penhauer urges  against  Hegel,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, is  not  wholly  groundless.  He  substantiates 
the  charge  by  citing  passages  from  the  "Encyclo- 
padie  ; "  here  is  one  of  them  :  — 

"Essential  being  (das  Wesen),  as  being  that  mediates 
itself  with  itself  by  the  negativity  of  itself,  is  relation  to 
itself  only  as  it  is  relation  to  another ;  that  is,  immediate 
only  as  something  posited  and  mediated." 

And  again  :  — 

"  Essential  being  {<:las  Wesen)  is  pure  identity  and 
appearance  in  itself  only  as  it  is  negativity  relating  it- 
self to  itself;  consequently  repulsion  of  itself  from  itself. 
It  therefore  contains  essentially  the  determination  of 
difference." 

Nothing  which  Schopenhauer  has  said  in  repro- 
bation of  such  stuff  is  too  severe. 

"  The  impudent  recklessness  of  this  charlatanism,  the  real 
imiwohitas  of  such  doing,  consists,"  he  says,  "  in  putting 
together  words  which  present  impossible  operations  of  the 
intellect,  contradictions  and  absurdities  of  every  kind, 
whereby  the  reader's  mind  is  tortured  in  the  same  way 

5 


66  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

that  the  body  would  be  if  forced  to  assume  positions  en- 
tirely contrary  to  its  articulations.  On  the  whole,  Hegel's 
philosophy  contains  three  parts  of  bare  nonsense,  and  one 
part  of  corrupt  notions.  Nothing  in  it  is  plain  but  its 
purpose,  which  is  to  gain  the  favor  of  princes  by  servility 
and  orthodoxy.  The  plainness  of  its  purpose  contrasts  in 
a  piquant  way  the  obscurity  of  the  presentation ;  and,  like 
Harlequin-out-of-the-egg,  there  develops  itself  at  the  end  of 
a  whole  volume  of  bombastic  gallimathias,  the  precious  pet- 
ticoat-philosophy which  they  teach  scholars  of  the  fourth 
form  ;  namely,  God,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  the  truth 
of  the  Evangelical  confession,  the  error  of  the  Catholic,"  etc. 

Whatever  the  rights  of  Schopenhauer's  polemic 
against  the  post-Kantians,  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  wrath  and  hate  were  its  motive-spring.  It 
was  only  a  part  of  his  controversy  with  the  world 
in  general,  or  so  much  of  it,  at  least,  as  he  could 
not  subject  to  or  range  on  his  side. 

Such  was  the  moral  of  the  man.  The  wonder  is 
that  wdtli  such  a  moral,  with  a  nature  so  devoid 
of  all  nobleness  and  sweetness,  of  fortitude  and 
strength,  there  should  have  been  combined  an 
intellect  so  robust  and  fine ;  that  such  a  brain 
should  have  coupled  with  such  a  heart.  The 
fact  goes  far  to  prove  his  own  favorite  theory  of 
the  purely  physical  origin  and  ground  of  mental 
action,  and  the  total  disconnection  between  the 
intellectual  and  moral  realms. 

As  a  metaphysical  writer  Germany  has  not  his 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  67 

equal,  and  no  nation,  I  think,  his  superior.  Less- 
ing  wrote  no  purer  or  more  idiomatic  German ; 
Hume  no  more  translucent  English.  Like  Leib- 
niz and  Spinoza  and  Berkeley,  he  has  shown  that 
the  deepest  themes  wliich  can  occupy  the  mind 
may  be  handled  in  a  lucid  and  readable  style. 
The  contrast  with  the  other  Kantians,  and  espe- 
cially with  Hegel,  is  crying.  Menzel  asks  :  "•  Who, 
on  reading  a  work  of  Hegel,  can  suppose  that  any 
nation  would  acknowledge  his  language  for  its 
own?"  Hegel  himself  prefixes  as  motto  to  his 
works  a  line  from  Sophocles  to  the  effect  that 
Truth  is  the  strength  of  discourse,  —  Ta\7]6h  ael 
irkeiarov  lcr")(yei  \o^6v.  But  truth  and  discourse 
in  a  philosophic  treatise  are  inseparably  connected ; 
and  when  the  discourse  is  involved,  perplexed,  and 
unintelligible,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  what  is 
^'  attempted  to  be  expressed  is  not  clear  to  the  mind 
of  the  writer.  Hegel  rejoices  in  abstractions,  en- 
tangles himself  with  them,  befogs  himself,  loses  his 
way  in  them,  —  or  causes,  at  least,  his  hearers  to 
lose  theirs.  He  mystifies  them,  —  sometimes,  I  must 
think,  wantonly.  Abstraction,  we  all  know,  is  a 
necessary  operation  in  metaphysic ;  but  abstraction 
may  be  wilfully  pursued  beyond  the  point  of  true 
perception,  beyond  the  bounds  of  consciousness ;  and 
then  it  becomes  a  play  of  words.  Hegel's  abstrac- 
tionism is  the  principle  of  infinite  divisibility  applied 


68  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

to  thought.  The  chemist  in  his  analysis  is  brought 
to  a  stand  by  fixed  bounds.  He  comes  upon  final- 
ities, whether  given  in  his  material  or  in  the  lim- 
ited capacity  of  his  instruments.  But  there  is  no 
finality  in  speculation ;  tliere,  the  analytic  process 
—  the  process  of  abstraction  —  may  be  continued 
ad.  libitum.  The  university  professor  has  so  many 
lectures  to  give  :  the  further  he  pushes  his  analysis, 
the  longer  the  material  will  hold  out.  Hence  per- 
haps the  ductility  of  certain  systems  given  in  the 
form  of  lectures.  Hegel  seems  to  have  known  no 
limit  to  his  abstractionism  but  that  of  practical 
necessity,  —  the  kind  of  necessity  we  express  by 
the  saying,  "  one  must  draw  the  line  somewhere.'* 
In  saying  this  I  am  by  no  means  insensible  to  the 
real  value  of  Hegel's  works.  No  doubt  he  was  one 
of  the  most  acute  of  modern  thinkers.  In  his  at- 
tempt to  apprehend  the  absolute  and  construct  the 
universe  a  priori^  he  failed,  indeed,  as  they  all  did  ; 
but  the  noble  thoughts,  the  luminous  intuitions 
with  which  he  has  enriched  so  many  fields  of  in- 
vestigation, establish  beyond  reasonable  question 
his  rank  among  the  magnates  of  speculative  philo- 
sophy. But  as  a  writer  he  is  very  unsatisfactory, 
not  to  say  repulsive ;  and,  here  and  there,  liable,  as 
I  said  before,  to  the  charge  of  charlatanism,  —  of 
a  word-juggle  which  promises  to  the  eye  or  the 
ear  a  meaning  impossible  to  appropriate  with  the 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  69 

understanding ;  as  in  the  instances  I  have  cited  from 
the  "  Encyclopadie."  From  this  vice  of  infini- 
tesimal analysis,  of  hair-splitting  abstruseness,  of 
nihilistic  refinement ;  from  this  compelling  of  lan- 
guage to  perform  impossible  feats,  —  Schopenhauer 
is  entirely  free.  With  a  clearly  defined,  intelligible, 
presentable  thought,  and  a  crystalline,  colorless, 
and  yet  singularly  vivid  and  commanding  style,  he 
approaches  the  great  problem  which  has  occupied 
the  dii  majores  of  philosophy  in  all  time,  —  the 
problem  of  ontology,  the  mystery  of  being,  the 
origin  and   ground  of  the  universe  of  things. 

Here  am  I,  and  there,  confronting  me,  is  the 
world  in  its  manifoldness.  This  is  a  fact  of  uni- 
versal consciousness.  No  need  to  go  back  of  that 
for  a  starting-point.  I  am  conscious  of  myself  and 
a  world  external  to  myself.  Philosophy  busies 
itself  with  this  fact.  We  soon  come  to  see  that 
what  we  call  the  world  is  simply  our  own  impres- 
sion of  it,  or,  —  using  the  word  in  its  popular  sense 
—  our  idea.  Hence  the  title  of  Schopenhauer's 
principal  work,  "  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea." 
The  German  word  is  Vorstellung,  which  means 
literally  "  representation,"  —  that  which  is  repre- 
sented to  me,  or  which  I  represent  to  myself.  We 
might  say,  "  The  world  as  willed  and  represented," 
or  "  The  world  as  willed  and  as  it  appears ;  "  but 
"  Idea "  is  sufficiently  exact,  and  a  less  awkward 
rendering. 


70  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM, 


SCHOPENHAUER'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

We  have  the  idea  of  a  world  external  to  our- 
selves, which  we  suppose  in  all  its  phenomena 
and  forms  to  correspond  with  our  conception. 
Whence  have  we  that  idea  ?  Primarily  and  ap- 
parently through  the  senses.  We  see,  we  hear, 
we  smell,  we  feel,  the  objects  that  compose  the 
world  of  our  experience ;  but  if  we  diligently  con- 
sider and  analyze  all  that  the  senses  actually  and 
ultimately  furnish  of  this  experience,  we  find  that 
it  falls  far  short  of  our  idea  of  external  things. 
What,  for  example,  do  we  get  through  the  eye  ? 
Neither  form  nor  distance,  but  only  color  and  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  light  and  shade.  What  do  we  get 
by  touch  ?  Differences  of  temperature,  different 
degrees  of  resistance,  a  different  pressure  on  the 
tactual  nerves.  All  that  the  senses  give  us  is  cer- 
tain affections  of  our  nervous  system.  But  these 
do  not  constitute  the  world  of  things  as  it  lies  in 
our  experience ;  they  do  not  account  for  that  expe- 
rience. Clearly,  another  supplementary  agent  is 
required  for  that  purpose ;  that  agent  is  the  intel- 
lect. We  have  a  brain,  weighing  on  the  average 
about  three  pounds.  It  is  the  action  of  that  brain, 
it  is  the  intellect,  that  gives  us  the  world  of  our 
idea.     The  eye  sees  objects  inverted ;  the  intellect 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  71 

sets  them  upright.  The  eye  sees  objects  equally 
near ;  the  intellect  places  them  in  right  perspective. 
The  eye  sees  objects  double  ;  the  intellect  construes 
one  from  the  two.  The  experience  of  every  blind- 
born  whose  eyes  have  been  successfully  couched 
confirms  this  statement.  But  the  new-born  infant, 
whose  eyes  are  sound,  arrives  at  its  perceptions  in 
the  same  way.  Infants  at  first  see  only  color  and 
different  degrees  of  light  and  shade.  They  have 
to  experiment  a  long  while,  to  turn  the  objects 
about  and  about,  to  view  them  in  different  lights, 
to  call  in  the  aid  of  touch,  to  reason  from  one 
aspect  to  another,  from  one  sensation  to  another, 
before  they  can  see  aright,  and  distinguish  the 
distant  from  the  near,  the  single  object  from  the 
medley  of  objects  presented  to  the  eye.  That  the 
intellect  in  all  this  business  acts  unconsciously, 
does  not  alter  the  fact ;  it  is  the  intellect,  never- 
theless, that  does  the  work.  The  understanding 
is  the  architect  that  builds  the  sensible  world  of 
our  experience ;  the  senses  but  furnish  the  raw 
material  to  this  great   artist. 

And  this  is  true  of  brutes  as  well  as  man.  In 
the  lower  orders  of  the  brute  creation  the  action 
of  the  intellect  is  of  course  less  perfect,  and  the 
world  which  they  perceive  corresponds  with  their 
limitation ;  it  is  not  our  world.  They  may  not 
even  have  a  brain  in  the  proper  sense  of  that  term. 


72  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

Mere  separate  ganglia,  little  knots  of  nerves,  may 
answer  their  need.  Still,  in  the  very  lowest  stages 
of  animal  nature  it  is  mental  action  that  does  the 
work.  It  is  this  '*  that  mediates  for  the  dull 
worm  the  existence  of  its  formless  and  soundless 
world." 

"  With  more  developed  brain  and  organs  of  sense,  the 
world  becomes  more  manifold,  richer  in  objects,  until  it 
reaches  its  perfect  idea  in  man.  But  always  it  is  the 
same  agency,  the  understanding,  that  informs  the  worm, 
that  prompts  the  infant  to  reach  after  the  moon,  and  that 
reveals  to  Leverrier  the  existence  of  an  unseen  planet. 
In  these  instances  the  agency  differs  only  in  degree.  To 
the  imperfectly  organized  animal  it  shows  only  the  crea- 
ture's own  relation  to  the  world  of  its  perception.  In 
man  it  appears  as  the  effort  to  combine  the  thousandfold 
variety  of  objects  and  impressions  in  one  chain  of  cause 
and  effect.  By  means  of  the  same  function  which  acts  in 
the  worm,  man,  ascending  from  effect  to  cause,  creates  his 
mechanics,  his  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  physiology. 
By  means  of  the  same  he  learns  to  view  as  a  whole  the 
life  of  humanity,  in  which  causes  become  motives,  and  so 
deduces  from  chronicles  pragmatic  history.  Or,  proceed- 
ing in  the  opposite  direction,  from  causes  to  effects,  he 
invents  machines,  and  on  thrones  or  in  cabinets,  by  com- 
mercial speculation  or  from  the  orator's  rostrum,  rules  his 
kind."  1 

It  is  the  merit  of  Schopenhauer,  building  as  he 
did  on  Kant,  to  have  greatly  simplified  the  method 

1  Weigelt :  Zur  Geschichte  der  neueren  Philosophie,  p.  125. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER.  73 

by  which  that  philosopher  constructs  our  idea  of 
the  phenomenal  world.  In  fact,  he  reduces  Kant's 
twelve  categories  —  the  three  respectively  of  quan- 
tity, quality,  relation,  and  modality — to  the  sin- 
gle law  of  causality,  which  he  identifies  with  the 
understanding  itself.  This  law  is  the  necessary 
condition  of  right  perception  of  the  universe ; 
therefore  it  cannot  have  come  to  us  from  without, 
it  must  pre-exist  in  us  prior  to  all  consciousness, 
underlying  all ;  as,  according  to  Kant,  those  forms 
of  perception  which  we  call  Time  and  Space  must 
be  antecedent  to  all  experience,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  the  conditions  of  all  experience. 

The  world  of  our  experience  then,  the  sensible 
world,  Die  Welt  ah  Vbrstellung,  is  the  product  of 
the  understanding.  That  which  we  rightly  perceive 
or  infer  is  the  real.  It  is  folly  to  ask  what  things 
may  be  in  themselves,  independently  of  our  per- 
ception. Independently  of  us  they  are  nothing, 
they  exist  not.  Their  relation  to  us,  their  action 
on  us,  is  their  reality.  What  they  are  for  us,  that 
/  they  are. 

As  the  senses  are  supplemented  by  the  under- 
standing, that  in  turn  is  supplemented  by  another 
faculty  called  reason,  —  the  organ  of  abstract 
ideas,  in  German  Begriffe ;  literally,  comprehen- 
sions, conceptions,  concepts,  because  they  take 
together,  or   embrace,  several  particulars  in   one. 


74  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

The  understanding  deals  with  actual  existences, 
reason  with  abstractions  —  what  the  schoolmen 
termed  "  universals."  It  classifies  given  existences, 
seizes  the  characteristics  common  to  each  kind, 
dropping  what  is  merely  individual,  and  thus  ob- 
tains general  or  abstract  ideas ;  for  example,  the 
understanding  knows  only  actual  horses,  dogs, 
men ;  reason  gives  us  the  idea  of  a  dog  in  general, 
a  horse,  a  man.  These  abstractions  are  embodied 
in  words.  It  is  reason  that  makes  language,  for 
language  consists  of  abstractions.     All  words,  ex- 

'  cepting  proper  names,  express  abstractions.  It  is 
true  we  distinguish  in  language  between  abstract 
and  concrete  terms.  Words  expressive  of  quali- 
ties we  call  abstract ;  words  expressive  of  things 
we  call  concrete.  Fleetness,  we  say,  is  abstract ; 
horse  and  bird  are  concrete.  Brightness  is  abs- 
tract;  a  star   or   a  candle   is   concrete.     But  the 

'  difference  in  reality  is  only  a  difference  in  degree. 
It  is  only  that  the  process  of  abstraction  has  been 
carried  farther  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other. 
Brightness  is  abstract  compared  with  star;  but 
star  is  abstract  compared  with  Sirius  or  Gamma 

,.  Lyrge.      Fidelity  is   abstract  compared  with   dog ; 

but  dog  is  abstract  compared  with  Pug  or  Tray. 

All  language,  as  consisting  of  abstractions,  is  the 

product    of    reason ;    for    only    reason    abstracts. 

/  The  understanding,  which  furnishes  only  intuitions, 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  15 

and  knows  only  particulars,  could  never  create 
speech.  Reason  is  that  which  distinguishes  man 
from  brute.  By  means  of  that  faculty,  through 
the  instrumentality  of  language,  we  have  science, 
art,  laws,  the  state,  all  plans  and  enterprises  in 
which  men  combine  for  common  ends.     All  these 

—  all  intelligent  action  whereby  humanity  differs 
from  brute  nature  is  founded  on  abstractions  and 
mediated  by  language. 

But  Schopenhauer  denies  to  reason  all  intui- 
tive power.  Herein  he  differs  from  Jacobi,  who 
ascribed  to  pure  reason  a  function  which  Kant 
had  relegated  to  the  practical ;  namely,  intuitive 
perception  of  supersensible  truths.  He  (Jacobi)  is 
the  real  author  of  that  distinction  and  characteri- 
zation respectively  of   reason   and  understanding, 

—  the  one  the  intuitive,  the  other  the  discursive 
faculty  —  which  now  so  widely  prevails.  Schopen- 
hauer repudiated  all  this.  The  understanding, 
according  to  him,  is  the  intuitive  faculty ;  but  its 
intuitions  are  sensible  objects.  Reason  knows 
only  abstractions ;  but  those  abstractions  must  be 
based  on  sensible  experience,  they  must  be  refer- 
rible  to  actual,  known  existences  at  last ;  otherwise 
they  have  no  validity :  as  the  notes  of  a  bank 
have  no  validity  without  specie  in  its  vaults.  He 
denies  to  reason  any  function  beyond  the  sphere 
of  sensible  experience,  and  so  consigns  the  idea  of 


76  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

God,  of  a  spiritual  world,  and  all  kindred  ideas,  to 
the  limbo  of  chima^ras  and  unrealities.  They  are 
inventions  or  illusions  which  philosophy  knows 
not,  with  which  philosophy  has  nothing  to  do. 

These  three,  then,  —  sense,  understanding,  rea- 
son,—  constitute  the  world  of  my  perceptioUj  of 
my  sensible  experience,  —  die  Welt  ah  Vor^tellung. 
The  world  is  my  Vorstellung  ;  is  it  anything  more  ? 
If  not,  then  where  is  the  difference  between  our 
waking  experience  and  our  dreams  ?  To  the 
dreamer  his  dreams  are  as  real  as  is  to  the 
waking  his  waking  experience.  To  the  madman 
his  fancies  are  as  true  as  their  perceptions  are  to 
the  sane.  Is  there  really  no  difference  between 
them  beyond  the  singularity  in  the  one  case  and 
the  general  agreement  in  the  other  ?  Is  the  world 
at  large  but  a  phantasmagory  agreed  on  ?  Has  it 
no  objective  existence  or  ground  ?  The  contrary 
is  not  to  be  demonstrated  if  any  one  shall  per- 
sist in  denying  it ;  but  by  common  consent  such 
denial  is  esteemed  insanity.  A  universal,  irresis- 
tible persuasion  establishes  for  all  sound  minds  the 
fact  of  an  external  cause  of  our  subjective  expe- 
rience —  of  our  perceptions.  The  only  rational 
question  in  this  matter  concerns  not  the  fact,  but 
the  nature  of  that  cause,  the  ground  of  my  Vor- 
stellung. Schopenhauer  finds  this  ground  of  all 
existence  to  be  the  all-present  Will.     That  is  what 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  7T 

underlies  our  perceptions  and  all  our  experience, 

—  the  sole  objective  reality.  The  process  by  which 
he  arrives  at  this  conclusion  it  is  unnecessary  here 
to  trace.  Its  principal  moment  is  the  coincidence 
of  will  and  perception  in  our  own  experience.  I 
will  to  raise  my  hand,  I  perceive  my  hand  to  rise. 
Perception  and  will  in  this  case  are  identified  in 
my  consciousness.  They  are  different  constituents 
of  one  subject,  one  Ego.  Applying  the  experience 
in  the  case  of  one  Vorstellung  to  all  other  Vor- 
stellungen,  he  concludes  that  every  perception, 
every  perceived  existence,  has  its  ground  in  will, 

—  it  is  simply  will  made  manifest.  The  same 
will  which,  with  conscious  volition,  causes  my  arm 
to  rise,  or,  more  precisely,  gives  me  the  perception 
of  the  raised  arm,  —  that  same  will,  acting  uncon- 
sciously^  made  my  arm,  which  I  perceive,  made  my 
body,  which  I  perceive,  made  the  entire  world  of 
my  perception. 

The  correctness  of  this  inference,  by  which  the 
motive  power  consciously  exerted  in  the  voluntary 
movements  of  one's  own  body  is  extended  to  all 
perceived  movements  and  appearances  external  to 
one's  self,  is  questionable.  I  cannot  see  that  the 
identity  of  agency  assumed  by  Schopenhauer  —  the 
identity  of  my  conscious  volition  with  the  vis  for- 
mativa  in  Nature  —  is  logically  established  by  his 
reasoning.     If  the  act  of  volition  by  which  I  raise 


78  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

my  arm  is  a  phase  and  a  fmiction  of  the  same  will 
which  made  the  arm,  and  that  will  identical  with 
the  universal  will,  ought  not  my  volition  to  operate 
beyond  the  limits  of  my  body  by  virtue  of  that 
identity  ?  I  am  confined  to  my  easy  chair  by  gout ; 
I  see  a  volume  on  my  shelves  which  I  wish  to  con- 
sult :  ought  I  not,  on  Schopenhauer's  theory,  to  be 
able  to  make  for  the  nonce  an  arm  sufficiently  long 
to  reach  it,  or  in  some  way  to  compel  it  within  my 
grasp  ?  Schopenhauer's  assumption  is  pure  as- 
sumption, not  demonstration ;  and  it  fails  to  explain 
the  limitations  and  conflict  of  will  in  our  experi- 
ence. But  grant  the  correctness  of  the  theory, 
which  certainly  has  the  merit  of  simplicity,  and  we 
have  the  other  factor  indicated  in  the  title  of  Scho- 
penhauer's work,  —  the  will.  The  world  is  pri- 
marily my  perception,  my  idea ;  on  reflection, 
inquiring  the  origin  and  ground  of  that  perception, 
I  find  it  to  be  also  will. 

In  his  representation  of  the  nature  and  action 
of  this  will,  our  philosopher  exhibits  what  is  most 
peculiar,  most  original,  most  piquant  in  his  sys- 
tem. We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the  action 
of  the  will  as  accompanied  in  all  cases  by  con- 
scious purpose,  by  contemplation  of  the  object 
willed.  Schopenhauer,  on  the  contrary,  maintains 
that  the  will,  of  which  the  universe  is  the  product, 
is  a  blind,  unconscious  force,  acting  with  no  idea 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  79 

of  any  end  to  be  obtained,  and  no  perception  (ex- 
cept as  human  individuals  perceive  it)  of  the  end 
accomplished.  Without  prevision,  without  a  pur- 
pose, the  headlong  omnipotence  works  and  weaves, 
makes  suns  and  planets,  makes  rocks  and  trees, 
makes  tigers  and  snakes  and  birds  and  fishes, 
and  at  last  makes  man ;  and  then  for  the  first 
time,  by  means  of  the  human  brain,  becomes  aware 
of  its  action.  It  is  not  intelligence  that  directs 
the  will,  but  the  will  that  makes  intelligence.  It 
is  something  that  supervenes,  —  an  ex  jyost  facto 
product.  The  lower  orders  of  creation  require 
and  receive  but  a  minimum  of  this  commodity. 
The  world  of  their  perception  is  merely  the  supply 
of  some  particular  kind  of  nutriment.  So  much 
of  it  only  they  see  and  know.  With  the  multi- 
plied and  advanced  requirements  of  the  higher 
orders  comes  increase  of  intelligence.  When  Na- 
ture, or  the  Universal  Will,  requires  in  any  of  its 
creatures  the  aid  of  intelligence  to  satisfy  the 
wants  of  that  creature,  it  makes  a  brain  propor- 
tioned to  those  wants;  in  man,  who  has  intel- 
lectual wants  as  well  as  physical,  it  develops  a 
brain  susceptible  of  ideas.  There  was  no  idea, 
no  reflective  intelligence,  no  perception  of  the  uni- 
verse in  the  power  that  produced  it,  until  man 
arrived.  With  the  birth  of  man,  the  blind,  uncon- 
scious worker  received  his  sight,  and,  like  a  som- 


80  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

nambulist  aroused  to  consciousness,  surveyed  with 
astonishment  the  deeds  performed  in  sleep,  and 
seemed  to  see  an  intelligent  purpose  where  in 
truth  there  had  been  none. 

Our  philosopher  compares  the  relation  between 
will  and  intelligence  to  a  strong  blind  man  who 
bears  a  seeing  one  on  his  shoulders.  Absence  of 
consciousness  does  not  prove  absence  of  will.  A 
necessary  movement  is  still  a  voluntary  one. 
Spinoza  had  said  that  a  stone  impelled  by  me- 
chanical force,  if  conscious,  would  seem  to  move 
by  its  own  volition ;  Schopenhauer  adds  that  the 
stone  would  be  right  in  so  thinking.  A  striking 
illustration  of  unconscious  creation  he  finds  in  an 
Indian  myth  from  the  "  Mahabarata."  Brahma 
created  Tillotama  the  most  beautiful  of  women, 
and  presented  her  in  turn  to  all  the  Gods.  Siva's 
desire  to  behold  her  was  so  great  that  four  faces 
were  successively  developed  in  him  as  she  made 
the  tour  of  the  assembly  ;  Indra's  longing  was  so 
intense  that  his  body  became  all  eyes. 

Creation,  as  we  apprehend  it,  creation  in  the 
view  of  theism,  is  thought  made  manifest ;  ac- 
cording to  Schopenhauer  it  is  will  without  thought. 
We  are  to  conceive  of  it  as  an  infinity  of  blind 
impulses  which  realize  themselves  in  concrete 
forms,  —  unconscious  will  everywhere  struggling 
into  being.     Will  wanted  to  blaze  and  shine,  and 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  81 

it  burst  into  suns.  It  wanted  to  realize  the  light 
and  heat  of  those  suns,  and  it  became  planets  revol- 
ving around  them.  It  wanted  to  vegetate,  and  it 
made  trees.  It  wanted  to  hang  from  the  branches 
of  those  trees  and  to  feed  upon  their  leaves,  and 
it  made  the  sloth.  It  wanted  to  burrow  in  the 
ground,  and  it  made  the  mole.  It  wanted  to  wallow 
in  the  mud,  and  it  made  the  crocodile.  It  wanted 
to  fly,  and  it  made  the  bird.  Among  other  things, 
it  wanted  to  know,  and  it  made  man.  It  wanted 
to  know  more,  and  it  made  Plato  and  Aristotle  and 
Kant.  It  wanted  to  mystify  the  vulgar,  and  it 
made  Hegel.  Finally,  it  wanted  to  see  itself,  to 
understand  thoroughly  its  own  essence  and  working, 
and  it  became  Schopenhauer.  Then  it  saw  all 
the  works  that  it  had  made,  and  —  Schopenhauer 
being  a  pessimist —  behold,  it  was  very  bad  ! 

Such  is  substantially  the  story  which  the  uni- 
verse tells  of  itself  in  the  reading  of  this  prince  of 
atheists.  Apart  from  its  atheism,  there  is  some- 
thing fascinating  in  his  view  of  the  w^ll  in  Nature. 
Taken  out  of  its  atheistic  connection,  which  is  not 
essential,  regarding  it  not  as  the  whole  and  final 
account  of  being,  but  as  principle  of  life  in  the 
phenomenal  world,  it  is  a  very  opportune  correc- 
tive of  that  carpenter  view  of  creation  which, 
under  the  name  of  the  Argument  from  Design,  has 
been  made  so  offensive  by  theologians  of  the  Paley 
6 


82  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

and  Bridgewater  school.  A  deeper  theology  has 
felt  the  inadequacy  of  the  carpenter  view,  and  on 
grounds  of  pure  theism  has  propounded  something 
akin  to  Schopenhauer's  unconscious  will.  Cud- 
worth's  Plastic  Nature  is  nearly  the  same  agency, 
but  conceived  as  motived  and  controlled  by  a 
supreme  mind,  and  not  as  itself  supreme. 

"  It  seems  not  so  agreeable  to  reason,"  says  Cudworth, 
"  that  Nature,  as  a  distinct  thing  from  the  Deity,  should 
be  quite  superseded  or  made  to  signify  nothing,  God  him- 
self doing  all  things  immediately  and  miraculously;  from 
whence  it  Avould  follow  also  that  they  are  all  done  either 
forcibly  and  violently,  or  else  artificially  only,  and  none  of 
them  by  any  inward  principle  of  their  own. 

"  This  opinion  is  further  confuted  by  that  slow  and 
gradual  process  that  is  in  the  generation  of  things,  which 
would  seem  to  be  but  a  vain  and  idle  pomp  or  a  trifling 
formality  if  the  agent  were  omnipotent ;  as  also  by  those 
dixapTrjixara,  as  Aristotle  calls  them,  those  errors  and  bun- 
gles which  are  committed  where  the  matter  is  inept  and 
contumacious  ;  which  argue  the  agent  not  to  be  irresistible, 
and  that  Nature  is  such  a  thing  as  is  not  altogether  incapa- 
ble (as  well  as  human  art)  of  being  sometimes  frustrated 
and  disappointed  by  the  indisposition  of  matter.  Whereas 
an  omnipotent  agent,  as  it  could  despatch  its  work  in  a 
moment,  so  it  would  always  do  it  infallibly  and  irresis- 
tibly, no  ineptitude  and  stubbornness  of  matter  being  ever 
able  to  hinder  such  a  one,  or  make  him  bungle  or  fumble 
in  anything. 

"Wherefore,  since  neither  all  things  are  produced  for- 
tuitously, or  by  the  unguided  mechanism  of  matter,  nor 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  83 

God  himself  may  be  reasonably  thought  to  do  all  things 
immediately  and  miraculously,  it  may  well  be  concluded 
that  there  is  a  Plastic  Nature  under  him,  which,  as  an  infe- 
rior and  subordinate  instrument,  doth  drudgingly  execute 
that  part  of  his  providence  which  consists  in  the  regular 
and  orderly  motion  of  matter ;  yet  so  as  that  there  is  also 
besides  this  a  higher  providence  to  be  acknowledged,  which, 
presiding  over  it,  doth  often  supply  the  defects  of  it,  and 
sometimes  overrule  it,  forasmuch  as  this  Plastic  Nature 
cannot  act  electively  nor  with  discretion."  ^ 

A  philosopher  must  speak  for  himself,  must 
be  heard  in  his  own  cause,  to  be  fairly  judged. 
Here  is  what  Schopenhauer  says  in  the  nineteenth 
chapter  of  the  second  book,  on  the  "  Primacy  of 
the  Will  in  Self-consciousness  :  "  — 

''  The  will,  as  Dmg  an  sick  [ultimate  reality],  consti- 
tutes the  inner,  real,  and  indestructible  being  of  man ;  but 
in  itself  it  is  unconscious.  For  consciousness  depends  on 
intellect,  and  intellect  is  a  mere  accident  of  our  being.  It 
is  a  function  of  the  brain  ;  and  that,  together  with  the 
nerves  and  spinal  marrow  attached  to  it,  is  merely  a  fruit, 
a  product,  of  the  rest  of  the  organism,  —  in  fact,  a  parasite 
of  that  organism ;  inasmuch  as  it  does  not  enter  actively 
into  its  innermost  mechanism,  but  serves  the  ends  of  self- 
preservation  only,  by  regulating  its  relations  to  the  ex- 
ternal world.  The  organism  itself,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
visibility,  the  objectivity  of  the  individual  will.  It  is 
the  image  of  the  will  as  it  represents  itself  in  the  afore- 
said brain,  and  therefore  conditioned  by  certain  forms  of 

1  Cudworth :  Intellectual  System,  book  i.  chap.  3. 


84  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

cognition,  —  time,  space,  and  causality.  Accordingly,  it 
represents  itself  as  something  extended,  acting  by  succes- 
sion and  material ;  ^.  e.,  effectively  working.  .  .  .  We  may 
say,  therefore,  that  the  intellect  is  the  secondary,  the  organ- 
ism the  primary,  —  i.  e.,  the  immediate,  —  manifestation  of 
the  will.  The  will  is  metaphysical ;  the  intellect  physical. 
The  intellect,  like  its  objects,  is  merely  phenomenal ;  the 
will  alone  is  Ding  an  sick.  In  a  more  symbolic  sense, 
speaking  in  similes,  will  is  the  substance  in  man,  intel- 
lect the  accident ;  will  the  matter,  intellect  the  form ; 
will   heat,  intellect  light." 

From  the  chapter  on  "  Tlic  Objectivation  of  the 
Will  ill  Irrational  Nature,"  book   ii.  chap.  3 :  — 

"  In  respect  of  the  life  of  plants,  I  call  attention  first  of 
all  to  the  remarkable  first  two  chapters  of  Aristotle's  Trea- 
tise on  Plants.  The  most  interesting  thing  in  them,  as 
is  often  the  case  with  Aristotle,  is  his  citation  of  opinions 
of  earlier  and  more  profound  philosophers.  Here  we  find 
that  Anaxagoras  and  Empedocles  taught  truly  that  plants 
derive  the  movement  of  their  growth  from  an  indwelling 
desire,  linOvixLa  ;  and  that  they  even  ascribed  to  them  joy 
and  pain,  —  consequently  sensation.  Plato  saw  in  them 
only  desire  ;  and  that  on  account  of  the  strong  alimentary 
propensity  manifested  by  them.  Aristotle,  on  the  contrary, 
true  to  his  usual  method,  gliding  on  the  surface  of  things 
and  holding  by  isolated  marks  and  ideas  fixed  by  con- 
ventional phrases,  maintains  that  there  can  be  no  desire 
without  sensation  ;  and  this  is  impossible  to  plants.  But 
his  confused  way  of  talking  shows  his  embarrassment  in 
relation  to  this  matter,  until,  where  ideas  are  wanting,  at 
the  right  moment  a  word  occurs  to  him,  ro  Op€7mKbv,  —  a 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  85 

faculty  of  nutriment.  This,  he  says,  plants  have,  in  virtue 
of  the  so-called  soul,  according  to  his  favorite  division  of 
vegetative,  sensitive,  and  intellective  soul.  But  that  is  a 
mere  scholastic  quiddity,  —  as  much  as  to  say  plants  are 
nourished  because  they  have  a  faculty  of  nutrition  I  A 
poor  substitute  for  the  deeper  investigations  of  the  pre- 
decessors whom  he  criticises !  Here,  too,  in  the  second 
chapter,  we  find  that  Empedocles  had  even  recognized  the 
sexuality  of  plants,  —  which  Aristotle  again  carps  at,  hid- 
ing his  ignorance  of  facts  behind  general  principles  :  as 
that  plants  cannot  have  both  sexes  in  one,  otherwise  they 
would  be  more  perfect  than  animals.  Analogous  with 
this  was  his  rejection  of  the  true  astronomical  system  of 
the  Pythagoreans.  By  his  absurd  princijna,  in  his  books 
on  the  heavens,  he  i^romoted  the  prevalence  of  the  Ptole- 
maic system,  —  whereby  humanity  was  deprived  of  a  truth 
of  the  highest  importance  for  two  thousand  years." 

He  quotes  Treviranus  on  "  The  Phenomena  and 
Laws  of  Organic  Life  :  "  — 

"  A  form  of  life  may  be  conceived  in  which  the  action  of 
the  outer  on  the  inner  occasions  only  feelings  of  pleasure 
and  displeasure,  and,  in  consequence  of  these,  desire.  Such 
is  the  life  of  plants." 

He  then  proceeds  to  say  :  — 

"  In  fact,  that  will  may  exist  without  cognition  is  visi- 
bly, I  might  say  palpably,  evident  in  the  life  of  plants. 
For  here  we  see  a  decided  effort  determined  by  wants 
variously  modified,  and  adapting  itself  to  different 
circumstances,  but  obviously  without  cognition. 

"  Now  although  we  find  the  recognition  of  desire,  —  i.  e., 


86  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

of  will,  —  as  the  basis  of  plant-life  expressed  with  greater 
or  less  clearness  of  conception  in  all  ages,  the  reference  of 
the  powers  of  inorganic  nature  to  the  same  basis  is  less 
frequent  as  the  distance  between  these  and  our  own  being 
increases.  Indeed  the  boundary-line  between  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic  is  the  sharpest-drawn  in  all  Nature,  and 
perhaps  the  only  one  which  admits  of  no  transition ;  so 
that  the  saying,  Natura  iion  facit  saltus,  seems  here  to  find 
an  exception.  For  though  many  crystallizations  exhibit 
forms  which  resemble  vegetation,  there  is  yet  a  funda- 
mental difference  between  even  the  slightest  tissue,  the 
lowest  mould,  and  all  inorganic  matter.  In  inorganic 
bodies  the  essential  and  permanent  —  that  which  consti- 
tutes their  identity  and  integrity  —  is  the  stuff,  the  mate- 
rial :  the  unessential,  changeable,  is  the  form.  With 
organized  bodies  it  is  precisely  the  reverse  :  their  life  con- 
sists in  constant  change  of  stuff  with  permanence  of  form  ; 
their  essence  and  identity,  therefore,  consists,  in  form. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  essential  point  of  my  doc- 
trine that  the  manifestation  of  will  is  no  more  dependent 
on  life  and  organization  than  it  is  on  perception  ;  conse- 
quently, that  the  inorganic  has  also  will ;  that  all  its  not 
otherwise  explained,  essential  properties  are  expressions  of 
that  will.  ...  In  tlie  shooting  of  a  crystal  we  see,  as  it 
were,  a  setting  towards,  an  attempt  at,  life,  to  which,  how- 
ever, it  doe.s  not  attain  because  the  fluid  in  which  the  crys- 
tal, like  all  initial  life,  consists  at  the  commencement  of 
that  process  is  not,  like  that  which  is  destined  for  life, 
enclosed  in  a  skin,  and  has  no  vessels  in  which  that  move- 
ment can  propagate  itself,  nor  anything  that  separates  it 
from  the  outer  world  ;  consequently,  the  momentary  move- 
ment is  arrested  by  rigidity,  and  only  a  trace  of  it  remains 
in  the  crystal." 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  87 

In  the  work  entitled  "Will  in  Nature,"  supple- 
mentary to  his  larger  treatise,  he  cites  a  vast  num- 
ber of  examples  illustrative  of  the  action  of  the 
will  in  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  even  the  inor- 
ganic world.  I  give  one  or  two  under  each  of 
these  heads  :  — 

"  Besides  the  organs  and  weapons,  offensive  and  defen- 
sive, in  every  animal,  the  will  has  also  armed  itself  with 
an  intellect  as  a  means  of  preservation  for  the  individual 
and  the  species.  Therefore  the  ancients  termed  the  intel- 
lect the  rjycfxovLKov,  the  path-finder  and  leader.  The  in- 
tellect is  destined  for  the  service  of  the  will,  and  is  always 
exactly  conformed  to  that.  Beasts  of  prey  require  and 
have  evidently  more  of  it  than  the  graminivora.  The  ele- 
phant, and  to  some  extent  the  horse,  appear  to  be  excep- 
tions. But  the  astonishing  intellect  of  the  elephant  was 
necessary,  because  with  his  two  hundred  years'  life-term, 
and  small  prolification,  the  will  in  his  case  had  to  provide 
for  the  longer  and  surer  preservation  of  the  individual,  and 
that  in  lands  abounding  in  the  strongest  and  most  vora- 
cious beasts  of  prey.  The  horse,  too,  has  a  longer  lease  of 
life  and  fewer  offspring  than  the  ruminants  ;  and  being 
without  horns,  tusks,  trunk,  or  any  weapon  but  his  hoofs, 
he  needed  more  intelligence  and  greater  fleetness  to  escape 
from  his  enemies.  The  extraordinary  intelligence  of  the 
apes  was  necessary,  partly  because  of  their  lengthened 
term  of  life,  which  extends  to  fifty  years,  and  their  limited 
offspring,  and  partly  because  they  have  hands,  to  employ 
which  there  must  be  a  corresponding  degree  of  under- 
standing, and  to  the  use  of  which  they  are  referred,  as  well 
in  the  way  of  self-defence  by  external  weapons  —  sticks 


88  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

and  stones  —  as  also  in  the  way  of  alimentation,  dictating 
various  artificial  means,  —  such  as  the  cracking  of  nuts  with 
stones,  and  the  insertion  of  a  stone  as  wedge  into  the  shell 
of  the  giant  mussel,  which  would  otherwise  close  upon 
and  wound  the  hand,  and  which  altogether  necessitates  a 
social  and  artificial  system  of  robbery,  such  as  the  pass- 
ing of  stolen  fruit  from  hand  to  hand,  the  stationing  of 
sentinels,  etc.  AVe  must  add  that  this  intelligence  is 
peculiar,  for  the  most  part,  to  the  youth  of  the  creature, 
while  the  muscular  power  is  yet  undeveloped.  The  young 
pongo  or  orang-outang  has  in  early  life  a  relatively  pre- 
ponderating brain  and  much  greater  intelligence  than  in 
mature  age,  when  developed  muscular  force  comes  in  to 
supply  the  place  of  the  diminishing  intellect.  .  .  .  The 
will  in  all  these  cases  is  the  prius,  the  intellect  the  poste- 
rius.  Beasts  of  prey  do  not  hunt,  nor  foxes  steal,  because 
they  have  superior  intelligence ;  but  because  they  will  to 
live  by  hunting  and  stealing,  they  have  greater  intelli- 
gence. ...  A  singular  illustration  of  our  thesis  is  the 
case  of  the  dodo,  or  Didus  ineptus,  of  the  Island  Mauritius, 
whose  species,  as  is  well  known,  is  now  extinct.  This 
creature,  as  its  Latin  name  indicates,  was  excessively  stu- 
pid, —  in  fact,  too  stupid  to  endure ;  from  which  it  appears 
that  Nature  for  once  had  gone  too  far  with  her  lex  parsi- 
monice,  and,  as  often  with  individuals,  so  here  with  a 
species,  produced  a  monster  which,  as  such,  could  not 
survive. " 

Under  the  head  of  Illustrations  from  Vegetable 
Nature,  he  cites  instances  of  efforts  made  by 
plants  to  gain  light,  or  moisture,  or  needed  sup- 
port.     Potatoes   in  deep  dark   cellars   have   been 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  89 

known  to  send  forth  shoots  twenty  feet  in  length 
to  reach  an  aperture  in  the  wall.  If  a  vessel  of 
water  be  placed  within  six  inches  of  certain  garden 
plants  and  left  over  night,  they  will  be  found  in 
the  morning  to  have  dipped  their  leaves  in  it. 
The  young  convolvulus  finds  the  neighboring 
stake,  although  its  position  be  daily  changed.  De- 
tach the  tendril  and  twine  it  the  other  way,  and  it 
will  untwist  itself  and  resume  its  original  bent,  or 
die  in  the  attempt.  Duhamel  placed  some  beans 
in  a  cylinder  filled  with  moist  earth.  In  due 
time  they  began  to  germinate,  sending  naturally 
their  plumulee  upwards  to  the  light,  and  their 
radiculse  downwards  into  the  soil.  After  a  few 
days  the  cylinder  was  turned  to  the  distance  of 
a  fourth  part  of  its  circumference  ;  then,  after  an- 
other interval,  again  and  still  again,  until  it  had 
performed  an  entire  revolution.  Then  the  beans 
were  taken  from  the  earth,  and  it  appeared  that 
with  each  change  in  the  cylinder  they  had  changed 
their  direction  in  accommodation  to  it,  —  the 
young  shoots  striving  upwards,  the  roots  down- 
wards, until  they  had  formed  a  perfect  spiral. 
Frorieps  has  an  essay  on  the  locomotion  of 
plants.  When  the  soil  in  wliich  they  are  rooted 
is  poor,  and  good  soil  is  near,  they  drop  a  twig 
into  the  good  soil ;  the  original  plant  dies,  but 
the  twig  takes  root  and  becomes  the  plant. 


90  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

In  the  chapter  on  Physical  Astronomy,  in  which 
he  traces  the  action  of  will  in  the  inorganic  world, 
he  is  glad  to  find  confirmation  of  his  doctrine 
in  a  passage  in  Sir  John  Herschel's  "  Outlines 
of  Astronomy  :  " — 

"  All  bodies  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  when  raised 
into  the  air  and  quietly  abandoned,  descend  to  the  earth's 
surface  in  lines  perpendicular  to  it.  They  are  therefore 
urged  thereto  by  a  force  or  effort,  the  direct  or  indirect 
result  of  a  consciousness  and  a  will  existing  somewhere, 
though  beyond  our  power  to  trace,  which  force  we  term 
gravity." 

Sir  John,  it  seems,  was  very  much  censured  for 
this  statement  by  his  reviewer,  who,  as  an  English- 
man, says  Schopenhauer,  was  first  of  all  concerned 
to  see  that  Mosaic  tradition  took  no  detriment. 
He  tl links  that  the  great  astronomer  had  a  right 
apiJergu  in  this  case  ;  but,  like  most  empirics,  was 
entangled  with  the  notion  that  will  is  inseparable 
from  consciousness. 

"  That  will  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  lifeless,  the  inorga- 
nic," he  says,  "  I  was  the  first  to  maintain.  With  me  will 
is  not,  as  the  common  opinion  represents  it,  an  accident  of 
knowledge,  and  therefore  of  life,  but  life  itself  is  the  a^jpear- 
ing  of  will.  Knowledge,  on  the  contrary,  is  truly  an  acci- 
dent of  life,  and  life  of  matter.  But  matter  itself  is  only 
the  perceptibility  {Wahrnehmharheit)  of  the  phenomena 
of  will." 

Besides  the  negative  atheism,  which  consists  in 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  91 

denying  to  the  Supreme  Will  —  the  Creative  Power 
—  intelligence,  conscious  or  unconscious,  which 
constitutes  the  distinguishing  feature  of  his  phil- 
osophy, Schopenhauer's  writings  contain  strong 
positive  expressions  of  disbelief  in  a  God.  The 
most  striking  which  occurs  to  me  is  the  following 
from  a  chapter  on  Theism,  in  a  treatise  on  Religion 
in  the  Parerga  and  Paralipomena. 

"  As  polytheism  is  tlie  personification  of  single  por- 
tions and  powers  of  Nature,  so  mouotlieism  is  the  person- 
iiicatioii  of  the  whole  of  Nature  at  one  blow.  But  when 
I  attempt  to  imagine  myself  as  standing  before  an  indi- 
vidual Being  to  whom  I  should  say  :  '  My  Creator,  once  I 
was  nothing  ;  but  thou  hast  produced  me,  so  that  I  am 
now  something,  and,  in  fact,  myself ! '  and  as  adding,  *  I 
thank  thee  for  this  benefit ! '  and,  to  crown  the  whole, 
as  avowing,  '  If  I  have  been  good  for  nothing,  it  is  my 
fault,'  —  I  confess  that,  in  consequence  of  my  philosophi- 
cal and  Indological  studies,  my  head  has  become  inca- 
pable of  enduring  such  a  thought.  .  .  .  Whether  one 
makes  an  idol  of  wood,  stone,  metal,  or  constructs  it  from 
abstract  ideas,  it  is  all  the  same  ;  it  is  idolatry  whenever 
one  has  a  personal  being  in  view  to  whom  one  sacrifices, 
whom  one  invokes,  whom  one  thanks.  And,  at  bottom, 
tliere  is  not  much  difi'erence  between  sacrificing  one's 
sheep  or  one's  inclinations." 

The  most  cursory  account  of  Schopenhauer's 
philosophy  demands  some  notice  of  his  ethical 
views  ;  the  rather  that  these,  though  not  the  most 
essential  point  in  his  system,  are  a  characteristic 


92  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

feature  of  the  man.  Besides,  it  concerns  us  to 
know  that,  while  Christian  and  most  theistical 
writers  lay  the  foundation  of  morals  in  the  being 
of  God,  and  while  conversely,  according  to  Kant, 
the  consciousness  of  moral  obligation  assures  the 
being  of  God,  —  an  ethical  basis  may  be  found, 
independently  of  theism,  in  the  nature  of  man ; 
that  morality  is  not  so  dependent  on  theological 
belief  that  the  two  must  stand  or  fall  together. 
When  Sir  Thomas  Browne  avers  that  he  gives  to 
the  poor  not  that  the  hungry  may  be  fed  and  the 
naked  clothed,  but  that  God  may  be  obeyed,  he 
strikes  at  the  root  of  ethics  ;  he  makes  right  the 
creation  of  arbitrary  will ;  he  declares  in  effect 
that  might  makes  right.  Plowever  certain  the  be- 
ing of  God,  the  reality  of  right  is  equally  certain ; 
if  indeed  we  can  separate  the  one  from  the  other. 
To  base  the  surer  on  the  less  sure,  moral  obliga- 
tion on  belief  in  God,  is  a  flat  inversion  of  the  true 
philosophic  order ;  it  is  standing  the  cone  on  its 
apex  instead  of  its  base.  Schopenhauer  knows  no 
God  in  the  ordinary  theistic  sense ;  but  the  abso- 
luteness of  moral  obligation  is  as  clear  to  him, 
as  stoutly  maintained  by  him,  as  by  any  preced- 
ing ethicist.  "  To  preach  morals,"  he  says,  "■  is 
easy ;  to  establish  the  foundation  of  morals  is  diffi- 
cult." In  184Q  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  in 
Copenhagen   proposed   as   the   subject  of   a   prize 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  93 

essay  the  true  foundation  of  moral  science  :  "  Phil- 
osophise moralis  fons  et  fundamcntum ;  utrum  in 
idea  moralitatis  quce  immediate  conscientia  con- 
tineatur  et  ceteris  notionihus  fundamentalibus  quse 
ex  ilia  prodeant,  explicandis  quasrenda  sunt,  an 
in  alio  cognoscendi  principio  ? "  Schopenhauer's 
essay  on  this  theme  did  not  receive  the  prize,  and 
perhaps  did  not  deserve  it ;  but  it  does  deserve  to 
be  read  for  its  very  great  value  as  a  dissertation 
at  once  profound  and  entertaining,  learned  and 
genial,  on  a  very  abstruse  subject,  —  as  a  clear 
exposition  of  the  author's  own  views,  and  a  worthy 
demonstration,  if  not  of  the  whole  ground,  at  least 
of  a  very  important  province,  of  moral  science.  He 
endeavors  to  answer  the  question  proposed  by  seek- 
ing the  true  criterion  of  worth  in  action.  This  he 
finds  in  the  absence  of  all  egoistic  motive,  of  all 
expectation  or  desire  of  good  to  the  actor.  He 
contends  for  the  possibility  and  the  fact  of  entire 
disinterestedness  in  action. 

"  It  will  be  conceded  to  me,  I  think,  that  many  a  one 
helps  and  gives,  performs  and  renounces,  without  any 
other  purpose  in  his  heart  than  that  of  helping  the  indi- 
vidual whose  need  he  sees.  That  Arnold  of  Winkelried, 
when  he  exclaimed  :  *  Triiwen,  lieben  Eidgenossen,  wuttl's 
minem  Wip  und  Kinde  gedenken,'  and  then  embraced  as 
many  of  the  enemy's  spears  as  he  could  gather  in  his 
arms,  —  had  a  selfish  purpose  in  so  doing,  let  him  believe 
who  canj  I  cannot. 


94  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

*'  Egoism  and  moral  worth  mutually  exclude  each  other. 
This  is  true  riot  merely  of  acts  performed  for  the  present 
manifest  use  and  profit  of  the  actor,  but  of  those  which  look 
to  any,  however  distant,  advantage  to  be  secured  in  this 
or  any  other  world  ;  of  all  in  which  the  actor  has  in  view 
his  honor,  his  popular  repute,  the  esteem  of  this  or  that 
individual,  or  the  sympathy  of  spectators  ;  of  all  in  which 
the  purpose  is  to  maintain  a  principle  from  which  even- 
tually one  expects  benefit  to  one's  self,  —  as  the  principle 
of  justice,  of  universal  helpfulness ;  it  is  true  of  all  in 
which  the  motive  is  the  expediency  of  obeying,  or  the  fear 
of  disobeying,  the  command  of  an  unknown  but  superior 
power ;  it  is  true  of  all  in  which  the  actor  is  concerned 
to  maintain  his  own  high  opinion  of  himself,  his  dignity 
and  worth,  whether  clearly  or  vaguely  conceive^!,  and  fears 
to  lose  his  self-respect,  and  thereby  to  sufter  hurt  to  his 
pride  :  it  is  true,  finally,  of  all  by  which  the  actor,  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  Wolff,  seeks  his  own  perfection. 
In  short,  whatever  the  object  to  be  gained,  so  long  as  the 
act  in  any  way  respects  the  weal  or  woe  of  the  actor,  it  is 
egoistic,  and  consequently  destitute  of  moral  value.  Only 
when  the  ultimate  end  of  the  act  or  omission  to  act  regards 
directly  and  exclusively  the  weal  or  woe  of  another,  does 
that  act  or  omission  bear  the  stamp  of  moral  worth." 

Having  established  this  criterion  of  moral  in 
action,  he  is  led  by  it  to  find  in  compassion  the 
supreme  virtue  and  the  source  of  all  that  properly 
deserves  that  name. 

*'  If  the  weal  and  woe  of  our  fellow-men  are  to  be  the 
governing  motive  in  action ;.  if  obedience  to  that  motive 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER,  95 

constitutes  the  moral  value  of  an  act,  —  then  it  needs  that 
we  identify  ourselves  with  them,  that  we  feel  their  wants 
as  our  wants,  their  suffering  as  our  suffering.  This  is 
compassion.  In  compassion  the  difference  between  me 
and  my  brother  is  lost  sight  of;  he  is  I,  and  I  am  he. 
Accordingly,  an  act  is  virtuous,  has  moral  value,  in  propor- 
tion as  it  unifies  the  actor  with  his  fellow-man,  or  rather, 
according  to  the  measure  in  which  it  results  from  such 
unifaction.  Why  is  it  that  cruelty  more  than  any  other 
wickedness  provokes  our  wrath  1  It  is  because  it  is  the 
extreme  opposite  of  compassion." 

The  losing  of  one's  self  for  and  in  others ;  the 
practical  negation  of  any  dividing  line  between  me 
and  my  neighbor ;  the  confounding  of  meiim  and 
tuum,  in  a  sense  the  reverse  of  that  trespassing  on 
other's  rights,  which  is  commonly  understood  by 
the  phrase,  —  this  is  the  essence  of  Schopenhauer's 
ethic.  And  here  his  Orientalism  and  his  idealism 
come  in  as  metaphysical  sponsors  and  vouchers  of 
his  ethical  system.  They  have  taught  him  that 
that  distinction  of  individuals,  one  from  another, 
which  his  moral  theory  would  have  us  forget,  has 
in  fact  no  existence  for  the  deeper  thought  of  the 
philosophic  mind.  All  men  not  only  behoove  to 
be  pragmatically,  but  are  actually,  one.  There  is 
no  I  and  no  you,  and  no  he  or  she,  if  we  go  to  the 
root  of  being.  The  seeming  plurality  is  a  sensu- 
ous illusion,  a  figment  of  the  brain.  ''  Wliere- 
on,"  he  asks,  "  depend  all  plurality  and  numerical 


96  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

difference  of  beings  ?  "  On  space  and  time  ;  these 
are  the  true  prmcipiu7n  individiiationis,  the  ground 
of  individuality.  But  Kant  has  taught  us  that 
space  and  time  are  merely  forms  of  perception ; 
they  have  no  existence  out  of  ourselves.  And  if 
time  and  space  are  ideal,  then  plurality  is  merely 
phenomenal ;  there  is  but  one  being.  So  taught 
the  Upanishads  of  the  Vedas  ;  so  taught  the  Py- 
thagoreans, the  Eleatics,  the  Neoplatonists,  who 
affirmed  all  souls  to  be  one  by  reason  of  the  unity 
of  things.  Scotus  Erigena,  in  the  ninth  century, 
endeavored  to  reproduce  this  doctrine  with  the 
forms  and  expressions  of  the  Christian  religion ; 
Giordano  Bruno  sealed  his  faith  in  it  with  a  pain- 
ful death.  Spinoza's  name  is  identified  with  it. 
And  when  in  our  day  Kant  had  annihilated  the 
old  dogmatism,  and  the  world  stood  shuddering  at 
the  smoking  ruins,  Schelling's  eclectic  philosophy 
revived  the  knowledge  of  the  truth. 

The  real  unity  of  all  being,  —  individuality  an 
empty  show,  —  this  is  the  speculative  basis  of  Scho- 
penhauer's ethical  system.  The  non-separation,  in 
practice,  of  self  from  others,  the  merging  of  self 
in  others,  is  the  thence-resulting  duty  and  law; 
the  feeling  of  compassion  proper  to  human  nature 
is  the  inborn  voucher  of  that  law ;  compassionate 
action,  self-sacrifice  for  other's  good,  is  the  supreme 
virtue. 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  97 

And  this  virtue  of  self-sacrifice,  this  self-abne- 
gation, in  addition  to  its  positive  import  and  its 
manifestation  in  philanthropic  action,  has  also  its 
negative  side,  in  what  our  philosopher  terms  abne- 
gation of  the  will  to  live.  This  most  idiomatic  is 
also  the  deepest  thing  in  his  system;  the  most 
searching  if  true,  the  falsest  if  false.  It  is  not 
brought  forward  in  the  "Ethik"  proper,  but  is 
much  insisted  on  in  the  larger  work.  The  fol- 
lowing extract  from  the  Supplement  to  the  Fourth 
Book  illustrates  the  import  of  his  thought  in  this 
direction  :  ^  — 

"The  ancients,  especially  the  Stoics,  as  also  the  Peripa- 
tetics and  Academics,  tasked  themselves  in  vain  to  prove 
that  virtue  suffices  to  make  life  happy.  Experience  cried 
aloud  against  them.  The  underlying  thought  in  the  effort 
of  those  philosophers  was  the  assumption  that  whoso  was 
free  from  fault  ought  also  in  justice  to  be  free  from  suffer- 
ing, —  that  is,  to  be  happy.  But  the  grave  and  deep 
solution  of  the  problem  lies  in  the  Christian  doctrine,  that 
there  is  no  justification  by  works,  and  that  though  a  man 
should  practise  all  justice  and  philanthropy,  — the  ayaOou, 
the  honestum,  —  he  still  would  not  be,  as  Cicero  supposes, 
'  culpa  omni  carens  ; '  for,  as  Calderon,  far  more  profound 
than  those  sages,  in  the  light  of  Christianity,  expressed 
it,   '  el  clehto  mayor  del  hombre  es  haber  nacido,'  —  man's 

1  This  Supplement,  by  the  way,  bears  as  its  motto  the  signifi- 
cant words  of  the  Chinese  sage,  Lao-tseu-Tao-te-king,  in  the  French 
of  Stanislaus  Julien  :  "  Tous  les  hommes  de'sirent  uniquement  de 
se  deUvrer  de  la  mort ;  ilsne  savent  pas  se  delivrer  de  la  vie." 

7 


98  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

greatest  fault  is  that  he  was  horn.  In  consequence  of 
this  primal  sin,  — -  "vvhich  must  have  proceeded  from  his 
will,  —  man,  although  he  may  have  practised  all  tlie 
virtues,  remains  justly  exposed  to  physical  and  mental 
sufferings,  and  therefore  is  not  happy.  But  that  works 
cannot  justify,  — as  Paul  and  Augustine  and  Luther  teach, 
since  we  are  all  essentially  sinners,  and  shall  be,  —  is 
grounded  at  last  on  this :  that  o'perari  seqiiitiir  esse,  to  act 
as  we  ouglit  we  must  also  he  what  we  ought.  But  then 
we  should  need  no  redemption  from  our  present  condition  ; 
that  redemption  which  not  only  Christianity,  hut  Brah- 
manism  and  Buddhism  represent  as  the  highest  goal ;  that 
is,  we  should  not  need  to  he  something  different,  something 
opposite  to  what  we  are.  .  .  .  Accordingly,  the  only  real 
sin  is  hereditary  sin.  This  the  Christian  myth  represents 
as  originating  after  the  hirtli  of  man,  and  by  fiction  im- 
putes to  him  jyer  impossibile,  freedom  of  will.  But  that 
it  does  simply  as  myth.  The  innermost  kernel  and  spirit 
of  Christianity  is  the  same  with  that  of  Brahmanism  and 
Buddhism.  They  all  teach  that  the  human  race  by  its  very 
existence  has  incurred  a  heavy  burden  of  guilt ;  only  that 
Christianity  does  not,  like  the  elder  religions,  jDroceed  in 
this  matter  directly  and  frankly,  does  not  squarely  impute 
the  guilt  to  existence  itself,  but  derives  it  from  the  act  of 
the  first  human  pair.  .  .  .  Conformably  to  what  has  been 
said,  existence  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  aberration,  the  re- 
turn from  which  is  redemption.  It  bears  throughout  this 
character.  In  this  sense  it  is  taken  by  the  oldest  Sama- 
nean  religions,  and  also,  although  in  a  circuitous  wa}^  by 
genuine  and  original  Christianity.  Even  Judaism,  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man,  —  its  only  redeeming  feature, 
—  contains  the  germ  of  this  view.     Only  Greek  heathenism 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  99 

and  Islam  are  wholly  optimistic.  "With  the  Greeks  the 
opposite  tendency  found  vent  in  their  tragedy  ;  but  Islam, 
the  newest,  is  also  the  worst  of  all  the  religions.  In 
fact  no  purpose  can  be  assigned  as  the  end  of  our  exis- 
tence but  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  it  were  better 
not  to  exist.  This  is  the  weightiest  of  all  truths,  wJiich 
must  therefore  be  proclaimed.  However  it  may  contrast 
with  the  modern  European  way  of  thinking,  it  is  neverthe- 
less in  all  unislamized  Asia  the  most  universally  acknowl- 
edged and  fundamental  truth. 

"When  we  contemj)late  the  will  to  live  in  the  whole 
and  objectively,  we  have  to  think  of  it,  in  accordance  with 
what  has  been  said,  as  laboring  under  an  illusion  ;  to  return 
from  which,  —  that  is,  to  renounce  all  one's  hitherto  striv- 
ing, —  is  what  the  religions  call  self-denial,  —  ahnegatio  sui 
ijDsisus.  For  the  will  to  live  is  the  real  self.  The  moral 
virtues,  justice  and  humanity,  having,  as  I  have  shown, 
when  genuine,  their  source  in  this,  —  that  the  will  to  live, 
piercing  through  the  principium  individuationis,  recognizes 
itself  again  in  all  its  manifestations,  —  these  virtues  are 
an  indication,  a  symptom,  that  the  will  which  is  manifest 
in  us  is  no  longer  altogether  fixed  in  that  illusion,  but  is 
beginning  to  be  undeceived,  and,  as  one  might  figuratively 
express  it,  is  already  flapping  its  wings  and  preparing  for 
flight.  Conversely,  injustice,  malice,  cruelty,  are  indica- 
tions of  the  contrary  ;  that  is,  of  the  deepest  enslavement 
to  that  illusion. 

"  The  perfect  exercise  of  the  moral  virtues  involves 
poverty,  manifold  privations  and  sufferings  in  those  who 
practise  them ;  and  therefore  ascetic,  in  the  narrowest 
sense,  the  renunciation  of  property,  wilful  pursuit  of 
the    disagreeable  and   repulsive,    self-torture,   fasting,   the 


100  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

hair-shirt,  and  mortifications,  are  justly  rejected  by  many  as 
superfluous.  Justice  itself  is  the  hair-shirt,  —  a  source  of 
constant  discomfort  to  him  who  practises  it ;  philanthropy, 
which  gives  away  the  needful,  is  a  perpetual  fasting.  This 
being  the  result  of  the  moral  virtues,  the  Vedanta  philoso- 
phy says  rightly,  that  when  true  knowledge  and,  in  conse- 
quence of  that,  entire  resignation,  which  is  the  second 
birth,  has  taken  place,  the  morality  or  immorality  of  the 
former  conversation  becomes  a  matter  of  indifference. 
"  Finditur  nodus  cordis,  dissolvuntur  omnes  dubitationes, 
ejusque  opera  evanescunt,  viso  supremo  illo."  ^ 

In  connection  with  his  doctrine  of  the  abnegation 
of  the  will  to  live,  Schopenhauer  says :  — 

"  The  death  of  the  individual  is  the  ever-repeated  ques- 
tion which  Nature  puts  to  each  in  turn  :  '  Have  you  had 
enough  1  Avill  you  come  out  of  mel'  And  in  order  that 
this  question  may  be  asked  the  more  frequently,  therefore 
the  life  of  the  individual  is  so  short." 

In  perfect  accord  with  this  view,  that  the  will 
is  the  only  real  and  enduring  thing  in  us,  whilst 
the  intellect,  which  gives  us  our  individual  con- 
sciousness, is  merely  a  physical  incident,  Schopen- 
hauer denies  to  the  human  individual  conscious 
immortality.  Immortality  in  his  view  of  it  belongs 
to  the  unconscious  will,  the  innermost  kernel  of 
our  being,  not  to  the  conscious  individual. 

"  He  will  least  of  all  fear  to  become  nothing  at  death 
who  has  come  to  know  that  he  is  already  nothing,  and  has 

1  Sansara,  sloca  32. 


ARTHUR    SCHOPENHAUER.  101 

therefore  ceased  to  feel  any  interest  in  his  incliviclualit}^ ; 
because  in  him  knowledge  has,  as  it  were,  burned  and 
consumed  the  will  [to  live],  so  that  no  desire  of  individual 
existence  any  longer  remains  to  him." 

The  following  passages  from  the  chapter  entitled 
"  Death  and  its  Relation  to  the  Indestructiblencss 
of  our  Essential  Being,"  may  serve  to  indicate  the 
drift  of  his  thought  on  this  fascinating  topic  :  — 

"  If  such  considerations  are  calculated  to  awaken  the 
conviction  that  there  is  something  in  us  which  death  can- 
not destroy,  it  is  only  by  raising  us  to  a  jDoint  of  view  from 
which  it  is  seen  that  birth  is  not  the  commencement  of  our 
being.  From  this  it  follows  that  what  has  been  repre- 
sented as  indestructible  by  death  is  not  the  proper  iii- 
dividuum.  That  is  something  produced  by  generation, 
bearing  the  j^roperties  of  father  and  mother.  It  is  there- 
fore merely  a  variety  of  the  species.  As  such  it  can  have 
only  a  finite  existence.  As,  therefore,  the  individual  has  no 
recollection  of  his  existence  before  birth,  he  can  have  as 
little  of  liis  present  existence  after  death.  Yet  every  one 
places  his  ego  in  consciousness :  that  seems  to  him  bound 
up  in  his  individuality ;  with  the  loss  of  that  all  that  is 
proper  to  him,  all  that  distinguishes  him  from  others,  as 
this  particular  individual,  appears  to  perish.  His  con- 
tinued existence  without  individuality  seems  to  him  indis- 
tinguishable from  that  of  all  being.  He  sees  his  ego  sink 
away.  .  .  But  the  ego  is  the  dark  point  in  consciousness  : 
just  as  the  point  at  which  the  optic  nerve  enters  the  retina 
is  blind ;  as  the  brain  itself  is  almost  without  sensation  ; 
as  the  body  of  the  sun  is  dark ;  as  the  eye,  whicli  sees 
all  things,  sees  not  itself.     Our  knowing  faculty  is  turned 


102  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

outward  ;  it  has  wholly  an  outward  direction  ;  it  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  brain  intended  for  self-preservation,  for  seeking 
nourishment  and  the  capture  of  prey.  Therefore  we  know 
of  this  individuum  only  as  it  presents  itself  to  external 
contemplation.  Could  the  individ.ual  bring  to  his  con- 
sciousness what  he  is  over  and  above  that,  he  Avould  will- 
ingly let  his  individuality  slide  ;  he  would  laugh  at  the 
tenacity  of  his  attachment  to  it ;  he  would  say  :  '  "What  do 
I  care  for  the  loss  of  this  individual,  seeing  I  have  in  me  the 
possibility  of  countless  individuals  ? '  he  would  see  that 
though  no  continuation  of  his  individual  being  awaits 
him,  he  is  just  as  well  off  without  it,  inasmuch  as  he  car- 
ries within  himself  a  full  compensation  for  the  want  of  it. 
It  is  further  to  be  considered  that  the  individuality  of  most 
men  is  such  a  wretched  and  worthless  thing  that  they 
really  lose  nothing  in  parting  with  it.  The  only  thing  in 
them  which  may  possibl}^  have  some  value  is  the  universal 
human  ;  and  of  this  the  perpetuity  is  assured  to  them.  In 
fact,  the  stark  immutability,  the  essential  limitation  of 
every  individuality,  as  such,  if  perpetuated  without  end, 
would  by  its  monotony  beget  such  satiety  that  in  order  to 
be  rid  of  it  one  would  rather  go  to  nothing.  To  demand 
individual  immortality  is,  properly  speaking,  to  desire  end- 
less perpetuation  of  an  error.  For  at  bottom  every  indi- 
viduality is  a  special  error  ;  a  misstep  ;  something  which 
had  better  not  be ;  to  come  out  of  which  is  the  true  end  of 
life.  In  confirmation  of  this  it  may  furthermore  be  said 
.that  most  men,  —  in  :^ict  all  men,  —  are  so  constituted  that 
they  would  never  be  happy,  to  whatever  world  they  might 
be  transferred  ;  for  just  so  far  as  difficulty  and  trouble  were 
excluded  from  that  world,  they  would  fall  a  prey  to  ennui; 
and  just  so  far  as  provision  were  made  against  enmd,  they 
would  fall  into  difficulties,  plagues,  and  sorrows. 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  103 

"  When  an  individual  experiences  fear  of  death  there 
appears  tins  singular  and  ludicrous  phenomenon,  —  that  the 
lord  of  the  worlds,  Avho  fills  the  universe  with  his  being, 
and  through  whom  alone  all  that  is  has  its  being,  trembles 
and  fears  to  perish  and  to  sink  into  the  abyss  of  eternal 
nothing,  —  while  in  truth  all  is  filled  with  him,  and  there 
is  no  place  in  which  he  is  not,  and  no  being  in  which  he 
does  not  live,  since  it  is  he  that  bears  existence,  not  exis- 
tence him.  Yet  it  is  he  who  trembles  in  the  individual, 
suffering  fear  of  death,  a  victim  of  the  illusion  due  to  the 
principium  individuationis,  which  limits  his  existence  by 
that  of  the  dying.  This  illusion  is  a  part  of  the  heavy 
dream  in  which  as  will  to  live  he  is  plunged.  .  .  .  What 
sleep  is  to  the  individual,  that  death  is  to  the  will  as  Ding 
an  sick.  It  could  not  bear  the  continuance  through  eter- 
nity of  the  same  doing  and  suffering  with  no  real  profit, 
if  memory  and  individuality  remained.  It  casts  these  off, 
—  that  is  Lethe ;  and,  refreshed  by  the  sleep  of  death, 
appears  a  new  being,  — 

"  '  To  new  shores  lures  the  new  day.' 

"We  arrive  thus  at  a  kind  of  metena  psychosis  ;  but  with 
this  difference,  that  not  the  entire  xl/vxv^  ^'^^  ^^^^  cognitive 
part,  but  only  the  will  is  included  in  it.  .  .  .  Death  is  the 
great  corrective  which  the  will  to  live,  and  the  egoism 
that  belongs  to  it,  receives  from  the  course  of  Nature.  .  .  . 
the  destruction  by  force  of  the  ground-error  of  our  being. 
We  are  something  that  ought  not  to  be,  and  therefore  we 
cease  to  be.  ...  To  sum  up  all  that  has  been  said  :  Death 
is  the  great  opportunity  to  be  no  more  /.  Happy  is  he 
who  improves  it !  The  moment  of  death  is  the  moment  of 
liberation  ;  hence  the  serenity  and  peace  apparent  in  the 
face  of  the  dead." 


104  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

He  who  is  truly  resigned  will  not  desire  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  personality  ;  he  freely  renounces 
this  known  existence  ;  that  which  is  to  take  its 
place  is  in  our  view  nothing,  because  our  exist- 
ence is  nothing  in  relation  to  that.  The  Buddhist 
doctrine  calls  it  Nirivana ;  that  is,  extinction. 

An  important  point  in  all  ethical  systems  is 
the  question  of  free  agency.  Are  human  actions 
determined  by  invincible  necessity,  or  do  they,  or 
can  they  in  any  case,  originate  in  absolute  freedom 
of  choice  ?  Schopenhauer  maintains  the  former. 
In  an  essay  which  obtained  the  prize  of  the  Danish 
Academy  on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  he  ascribes 
freedom  to  being,  but  denies  it  to  action.  Being 
is  the  manifestation  of  the  one  universal  will. 
That,  having  nothing  behind  it,  must  of  course  be 
absolutely  free.  But  the  private  will,  as  exerted 
in  conscious  action,  being  bounded  by  the  univer- 
sal, is  of  necessity  determined  by  it,  and  can  will 
only  what  lies  in  the  given  nature  of  the  individual. 
Therefore,  the  consciousness  which  men  claim  to 
have  of  freedom  of  choice  is  illusory.  Conscious- 
ness, limited  by  the  universal  will,  is  not  a  com- 
petent witness  in  the  case  ;  it  does  not  reach  to  the 
origin  of  action. 

"The  self-consciousness  of  every  man  tells  him  dis- 
tinctly that  he  can  do  what  he  will ;  and  as  he  is  capable 
of  conceiving  of  entirely  opposite  acts  as  willed  by  him, 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  105 

it  follows,  of  course,  that  he  can  perform  either  of  those 
opposite  acts  if  he  will.  Hence  tlie  rude  mind,  con- 
founding things  that  are  very  different,  concludes  that  in 
a  given  case  a  man  can  ivUl  opposite  acts,  and  calls  this 
freedom  of  will.  But  that  is  not  what  consciousness 
really  says.  What  it  says  is,  that  of  two  opposite  acts  a 
man  can  do  this  one  if  he  will,  or  that  one  if  he  will  :  but 
wdiether  he  can  will  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  in  a  given 
case  remains  undecided ;  that  is  a  matter  for  deeper 
investigation,  and  lies  beyond  the  power  of  self-conscious- 
ness. .  .  .  Tlie  question  concerniug  free  agency  is  a  touch- 
stone by  which  to  distinguish  profound  minds  from  those 
which  are  superficial, — a  boundary  stone  where  these 
two  classes  separate  :  the  former  all  maintaining  that 
every  act  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  a  given  char- 
acter and  motive ;  the  latter,  together  with  the  great 
multitude,  professing  freedom  of  will.  .  .  .  Are  two  modes 
of  action  possible  to  a  given  individual  under  given  condi- 
tions, or  only  one  1  The  answer  of  all  deep  thinkers  is, 
'  Only  one.'  .  .  .  All  that  happens,  from  the  greatest  to 
the  least,  happens  necessarily.  Quidquid  fit  necessario 
fit,  .  .  .  Whoever  is  frightened  at  these  conclusions,  has 
still  something  to  learn  and  something  to  unlearn.  Then 
he  will  perceive  that  they  are  the  richest  source  of  consola- 
tion and  peace.  Our  acts  are  not  a  first  beginning  ;  noth- 
ing new  is  brought  into  being  by  them  :  by  what  we  do 
we  only  learn  what  we  are." 

Whoever  has  heard  of  Schopenhauer,  or  knows 
anything  about  him,  knows  of  his  pessimism.  By 
pessimism  is  meant  the  doctrine  that  things  are 
as  bad  as  they  can  be  ;  that  life,  as  such,  is  an  evil ; 


106  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

that  for  even  the  most  fortunate  it  is  a  misfortune 
to  have  been  born.  As  optimism  means  that  the 
world  is  the  best  possible  world,  so  pessimism 
conceives  it  to  be  the  worst  possible.  The  former 
view  is  a  logical  consequence  of  theism,  the  latter 
of  atheism.  If  theism  is  true,  if  the  world  is  the 
product  of  a  Being  of  infinite  wisdom,  power,  and 
goodness,  it  must  of  necessity  be  the  best  possible 
world.  Not  the  best  conceivable,  because  our  con- 
ception may  ignore  the  necessary  metes  and  bounds 
of  finite  Nature :  we  may  imagine  the  advantages 
of  opposite  conditions  united  in  one ;  we  may  ima- 
gine tropical  and  arctic  splendors  combined,  with  a 
temperature  deliciously  exempt  from  excess  of  heat 
or  cold :  we  may  imagine  all  sorts  of  impossibili- 
ties :  not  the  best  imaginable,  but  the  best  possible. 
Schopenhauer,  on  the  contrary,  maintains  that  the 
world  as  we  have  it  is  the  worst  possible  world. 
Not  the  worst  imaginable  ;  for  we  may  imagine  all 
sorts  of  evils  which  do  not  exist :  but  the  worst 
possible.  Were  it  worse  tlian  it  is,  it  could  not 
subsist ;  the  evil  in  it,  working  destruction,  would 
overbalance  the  conservative  forces,  and  universal 
ruin  ensue.  A  certain  amount  of  good  is  essential 
to  the  preservation  of  life.  In  the  world,  as  at 
present  constituted,  there  is  no  more  good,  he 
thinks,  than  is  absolutely  needed  for  that  end. 
This  doctrine  is  evidently  a  favorite  topic.     He 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  107 

finds  a  bitter  satisfaction  in  multiplying  proofs  of 
human  misery ;  he  publishes  "  our  woe  "  with  the 
zeal  of  a  propagandist.  Here  is  what  he  says  in 
the  chapter  entitled,  "  Of  the  Nothingness  and 
Sorrows  of  Life  :  "  — 

"  Awaking  into  life  out  of  the  night  of  unconscious- 
ness, the  Will  finds  itself  an  individual  in  a  world  without 
end  or  bound,  among  countless  individuals,  all  struggling, 
suffering,  erring  ;  and  he  hurries  as  through  an  anxious 
dream  back  into  the  old  unconsciousness.  Meanwhile  his 
wishes  are  boundless,  his  demands  inexhaustible,  and 
every  satisfied  wish  gives  birth  to  a  new  one.  No  satis- 
faction within  the  possibilities  of  tins  world  would  suffice 
to  still  his  longing  or  set  a  final  term  to  his  desire.  No 
satisfaction  can  fill  the  bottomless  abyss  of  his  heart. 
Consider,  besides,  what  kind  of  satisfactions  generally  fall 
to  the  lot  of  man.  For  the  most  part  nothing  more  than 
the  meagre  support  of  life,  accomplished  with  unremit- 
ting pains  and  ceaseless  care  in  the  battle  with  necessity, 
with  death  in  prospect.  Everything  in  life  advises  us 
that  the  pursuit  of  happiness  is  destined  to  be  frustrated, 
or  the  end  attained  to  prove  an  illusion.  It  has  been  so 
arranged  in  the  constitution  of  things.  In  accordance 
with  this  the  life  of  most  men  is  sorrowful  and  brief. 
The  comparatively  happy  are  so  for  the  most  part  only  in 
appearance ;  or,  like  instances  of  longevity,  they  are  rare 
exceptions,  for  wdiich  provision  lias  been  made,  that  they 
may  serve  as  decoys.  Life  presents  itself  as  a  constant 
cheat,  in  little  as  in  great.  What  it  promised  it  fails  to 
perform,  or  performs  only  to  show  how  undesirable  was 
that  which  we  desired.      Thus  either  the  wish  or  the  thing 


108  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

wished  deludes.  If  it  gives,  it  is  only  to  take  away.  The 
magic  of  distance  shows  us  paradises  which,  like  optical 
illusions,  vanish,  if  we  let  ourselves  be  fooled  into  the 
23ursuit  of  them.  Accordingly,  happiness  is  always  in  the 
future,  or  else  in  the  past.  The  present  is  a  small  black 
cloud  which  the  wind  drives  over  a  sun-bright  surface. 
Before  and  behind  all  is  light ;  but  always  the  present 
flings  a  shadow.  It  is  always  unsufiicing,  the  future 
uncertain,  the  past  irrevocable.  Life  with  its  hourl}", 
daily,  weekly  and  j^early,  small  and  great  and  greater  con- 
tradictions, with  its  disappointed  hopes,  its  mishaps  frus- 
trating all  calculation,  bears  undeniably  the  stamp  of 
something  that  was  meant  to  be  bitterness.  It  is  difficult 
to  understand  how  men  could  ever  mistake  tliis  fact,  how 
they  could  ever  suffer  themselves  to  be  persuaded  that  life 
was  given  to  be  thankfully  enjoyed,  and  that  man  was 
made  to  be  happy.  On  the  contrary,  this  perpetual  illu- 
sion and  disenchantment,  and  the  whole  pervading  quality 
of  life,  shows  it  designed  and  devised  to  awaken  in  us  the 
conviction  that  notliing  is  worth  our  striving,  driving,  and 
struggling ;  that  all  goods  are  vanity,  the  world  in  all  its 
parts  bankrupt,  and  life  a  business  that  does  not  pay,  —  iu 
order  that  our  will  may  detach  itself  from  it. 

"  Our  life  resembles  a  payment  which  is  doled  out  to  us 
in  instalments  of  coppers,  and  for  which,  nevertheless,  we 
are  obliged  to  give  quittance.  The  coppers  are  days,  the 
quittance  is  death.  For  time  at  last  pronounces  sentence 
on  the  value  of  all  that  appears  in  it  by  annihilating  ail. 

"  '  And  justly  so  ;  for  all  that  is  brought  forth 
Deserves  to  perish  :  that  is  all 't  is  wortli. 
T'  were  therefore  better  nothing  were  brought  forth.*  i 

1  Mephistopheles,  in  Faust. 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  109 

Thus  old  age  and  death,  the  goal  towards  which  all  life  is 
inevitahly  hastening,  are  the  judgment  passed  by  Nature 
herself  on  the  will  to  live,  — a  judgment  which  declares 
that  this  will  is  an  efibrt  that  must  frustrate  herself. 
'  What  tliou  hast  willed,'  it  says,  '  ends  so  ;  will  something 
better.'  This,  then,  is  the  lesson  of  life  to  every  man.  It 
teaches  him  that  the  objects  of  his  wishes  forever  deceive, 
waver,  and  fall,  and  therefore  yield  more  torment  than 
pleasure ;  until  finally  the  whole  ground  and  bottom  on 
which  they  rest  breaks  through,  his  life  itself  is  annihi- 
lated, and  he  thence  receives  the  final  confirmation  of  the 
truth,  that  all  his  willing  and  striving  was  a  perversity,  an 
aberration. 

"  'Tlien  old  age  and  experience,  hand  in  hand, 
Lead  lura  to  death,  and  make  him  understand. 
After  a  search  so  painful  and  so  long, 
That  all  his  life  he  has  been  in  the  wrong.' 

"  But  let  us  come  to  particulars  ;  for  these  are  the  views 
in  which  I  have  experienced  the  greatest  opposition.  I 
have  first  to  confirm  the  assertion  made  in  the  text,  of  the 
negative  character  of  all  satisfaction,  enjoyment,  happi- 
ness, and  the  positiveness  of  all  pain. 

"  We  feel  pain,  but  do  not  feel  painlessness.  We  are 
conscious  of  care,  but  not  of  exemption  from  care ;  of  fear, 
but  not  of  safety.  We  feel  our  wishes  as  we  feel  hunger  and 
thirst ;  but  as  soon  as  the  wish  is  fulfilled  it  is  with  that 
as  it  is  with  the  morsel  we  taste  ;  when  swallowed  it  ceases 
to  exist  for  our  consciousness.  We  miss  enjoyments  and 
pleasures  painfully  as  soon  as  they  are  Avithdrawn  ;  but  our 
pains  when,  after  a  long  trial,  they  cease,  are  not  missed 
directly,  but  only  through  reflection.  For  only  pain  and 
privation  are  capable  of  being  positively  felt.     These  speak 


110  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

for  themselves  ;  well-being  is  merely  negative.  Hence  it  is 
that  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  three  chief  goods  of  life,  — 
health,  youth,  and  freedom,  —  as  long  as  we  possess  them, 
but  only  when  we  have  lost  them  ;  and  then  they  are  also 
negations.  That  any  of  the  days  of  our  life  were  happy 
we  first  perceive  when  they  have  given  place  to  days  of 
sorrow.  In  the  measure  in  which  enjoyments  multiply, 
sensibility  diminishes ;  the  accustomed  ceases  to  be  felt 
as  a  good.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  from  this  very  cause, 
we  become  more  sensitive  to  suifering  ;  for  want  of  the 
accustomed  is  painfully  felt.  The  more  pleasant  the  hours, 
the  more  quickly  they  fly  ;  the  sadder,  the  slower,  be- 
cause pain,  not  enjoyment,  is  the  positive  thing  whose 
presence  makes  itself  felt.  For  the  same  reason,  ennui, 
not  amusement,  makes  us  sensible  of  time.  These  two 
things  prove  that  our  existence  is  happiest  then  when  we 
are  least  conscious  of  it ;  from  wliich^it  follows  that  it  were 
better  not  to  have  it  at  all.  A  great  and  vivid  joy  is  posi- 
tively inconceivable  without  previous  need ;  for  a  state  of 
enduring  satisfaction  admits  of  no  addition,  except  per- 
haps amusement,  or  the  gratification  of  vanity.  Hence 
all  poets  are  compelled  to  place  their  heroes  in  anxious 
and  painful  situations,  in  order  to  deliver  them  therefrom. 
Drama  and  epos  universally  portray  only  struggling,  suffer- 
ing, tortured  mortals ;  and  every  novel  is  a  show-box  in 
which  we  behold  the  spasms  and  convulsions  of  the  tor- 
tured human  heart.  This  sesthetic  necessity  Walter  Scott 
has  naively  exposed  in  the  conclusion  of  '  Old  Mortality.* 
Quite  in  accordance  with  these  truths,  Voltaire,  favored  as 
he  was  by  nature  and  fortune,  says  :  '  Happiness  is  only 
a  dream,  and  pain  is  real ; '  and  adds,  '  this  is  the  result  of 
my  eighty  years'  experience.     I  know  nothing  for  it  but  to 


1 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  Ill 

submit  and  to  say  to  myself,  that  flies  are  born  to  be  eaten 
by  sj^iders,  and  men  to  be  devoured  by  sorro\ys  {chagrins).^ 

"  Before  one  pronounces  so  confidently  that  life  is  a 
desirable  good,  a  thing  to  be  thankful  for,  let  him  calmly 
compare  the  sum  of  possible  joys  which  a  man  can  have 
in  a  lifetime  with  the  sum  of  possible  sufferings.  I 
believe  the  balance  will  not  be  difficult  to  cast.  But  at 
bottom  it  is  quite  superfluous  to  contend  whether  good  or 
evil  preponderates  in  life ;  the  mere  existence  of  evil 
decides  the  matter,  since  it  never  can  be  abolished,  and 
consequently  never  neutralized,  by  any  accompanying  or 
subsequent  good.  For  if  it  were  true  that  thousands  have 
lived  in  happiness  and  joy,  the  fact  could  never  cancel  the 
anguish  and  death-torments  of  a  single  individual.  Just  as 
little  can  my  present  well-being  cause  my  past  sufferings 
never  to  have  been.  If,  therefore,  th3  evil  that  is  in  the 
world  were  a  hundredfold  less  than  it  is,  still  tlie  mere 
existence  of  evil  would  be  sufficient  to  establish  a  truth 
which  may  be  expressed  in  different  ways,  though  always 
somewhat  indirectly,  —  to  wit,  that  we  are  not  to  rejoice 
in  the  existence  of  the  world,  but  rather  to  grieve  at  it ; 
that  its  non-existence  would  be  preferable ;  that  the  world 
is  something  which,  all  things  considered,  ought  not  to  be.' 
.  ,  .  Right  beautifid  is  Byron's  statement  of  this  matter : 

"  *  Our  Hfe  is  a  false  nature  ;  't  is  not  in 

The  harmony  of  things,  this  hard  decree, 
This  ineradicable  taint  of  sin. 

This  boundless  upas,  this  all-blasting  tree, 
Whose  root  is  earth,  wliose  leaves  and  brandies  be 

Tlie  skies  whicli  rain  their  plagues  on  men  like  dew  — 
Disease,  death,  bondage  —  all  the  Avoes  we  see, — 

And  worse,  tlie  woes  we  see  not  —  which  throb  through 
The  immedicable  soul  with  heart-aches  ever  new.' 


112  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

"  Small  incidents  have  power  to  make  ns  perfectly 
wretched  ;  nothing  in  this  world  can  make  ns  perfectly 
happy.  Whatever  one  may  say,  the  happiest  moment  of 
the  happy  is  the  moment  of  falling  asleep ;  as  the  most 
unhappy  moment  of  the  nnhappy  is  the  moment  of 
waking. 

"  If  the  world  were  not  sometliing  that,  practically 
exi^ressed,  ought  not  to  be,  it  would  not  be  theoretically  a 
problem.  On  the  contrary,  its  existence  would  either  need 
no  explanation,  it  would  be  so  intelligible  in  itself  that  no 
one  would  ever  think  of  wondering  or  inquiring  about  it ; 
or  else  the  purpose  of  it  would  unmistakably  present  itself. 
Instead  of  that  it  is  an  insoluble  problem ;  the  most  per- 
fect philosophy  will  always  contain  an  inexplicable  some- 
thing, like  an  insoluble  element,  or  like  the  remainder  left 
by  the  irrrtional  relation  of  two  quantities.  Therefore, 
when  any  one  ventures  to  propound  the  question  why  it 
were  not  better  that  nothing  should  exist  than  that  this 
world  should  exist,  the  world  will  be  found  not  to  justify 
itself  from  itself ;  no  reason,  no  final  cause  of  its  existence 
can  be  found  in  it  by  which  it  could  be  shown  to  exist  for 
its  own  sake,  for  its  own  advantage. 

"  On  the  other  side  it  is  maintained  that  life  from  begin- 
ning to  end  was  designed  to  be  a  lesson.  But  to  this 
every  one  might  answer  :  '  For  that  very  reason  I  wish  I 
had  been  left  in  the  peace  of  all-sufficient  nothingness, 
where  I  should  need  no  lessons  nor  anything  else.'  And  if, 
in  addition  to  all  this,  he  is  told  that  he  must  one  day  give 
account  of  every  hour  of  his  life,  he,  on  the  contrary, 
would  be  rather  entitled  to  demand  an  account  for  having 
been  transported  from  that  rest  into  such  a  questionable, 
gloomy,   anxious,   and   painful  position.  .  .  .  Eor  human 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  113 

existence,  far  from  having  the  character  of  a  gift,  has 
altogether  that  of  a  contracted  debt.  The  payment  of 
that  debt  appears  in  the  form  of  the  pressing  necessities 
which  life  brings,  its  tormenting  wishes  and  endless  suffer- 
ing. Generally,  a  whole  lifetime  is  spent  in  discharging  it ; 
and  then  it  is  only  the  interest  that  is  cancelled.  The 
payment  of  the  capital  is  death. 

"  And  to  such  a  world,  to  this  arena  of  vexed  and  tor- 
mented beings,  which  subsists  only  by  mutual  devouring 
one  of  another,  so  that  every  voracious  animal  is  the  grave 
of  thousands,  and  self-preservation  a  chain  of  martyr- 
deaths  ;  a  world  where  the  susceptibility  of  suffering  in- 
creases with  increase  of  knowledge,  and  reaches  its  highest 
grade  in  man  the  higher,  the  more  intelligent  he  is,  —  to 
such  a  world  it  has  been  attempted  to  apply  the  system 
of  optimism,  proving  it  to  be  the  best  possible  world. 
The  absurdity  is  crying.  JS'evertheless  the  optimist  asks 
me  to  open  my  eyes  and  look  at  the  world,  and  see  how 
beautiful  it  is  in  the  sunlight,  with  its  mountains,  valleys, 
rivers,  plants,  animals,  etc.  But  is  the  world  then  a  show- 
box  1  To  be  sure,  these  things  are  beautiful  to  look  at ;  but 
to  he  these  things  is  another  matter.  Then  comes  the 
teleologian,  and  praises  me  the  wise  arrangement  by  virtue 
of  which  the  planets  are  prevented  from  knocking  their 
heads  together,  and  land  and  sea  are  not  mixed  in  a  gene- 
ral mud-pie,  but  kept  nicely  apart ;  by  virtue  of  which 
everything  is  not  congealed  with  frost  or  roasted  with 
heat,  and  in  consequence  of  the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic, 
there  is  no  perpetual  spring,  in  which  nothing  would  come 
to  maturity,  etc.  But  these  and  the  like  are  merely  con- 
ditiones  sine  qiiihus  non.  If  there  is  to  be  a  world  at  all, 
if  the  planets  are  to  last  but  so  long  as  it  takes  a  ray 

8 


114  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

of  light  from  some  remote  fixed  star  to  reach  them.  .  .  . 
then,  of  course,  the  world  must  not  be  so  clumsily  put 
together  that  its  ground-frame  would  be  liable  to  cave 
in.  But  when  we  proceed  to  test  the  results  of  the  work 
so  praised,  and  consider  the  actors  who  play  their  parts  on 
tliis  so  durably  constructed  stage;  when  we  observe  how 
sensibility  is  always  accompanied  with  pain,  wliich  increases 
in  the  measure  in  which  sensibility  develops  into  intelli- 
gence, and  iiow,  keeping  pace  with  intelligence,  greed  and 
suifering  are  ever  more  intense,  until  at  last  the  life  of 
man  is  good  for  nothing  but  to  furnish  material  for  tra- 
gedies and  comedies,  —  then  verily  no  one  who  is  not  a 
hypocrite  will  be  disposed  to  sound  Hallelujahs." 

My  criticism  of  Schopenliauer's  philosophy  must 
needs  be  brief.  I  desire  first  of  all  to  express  my 
hearty  appreciation  of  its  merits  in  one  or  two 
points  in  which  it  happily  contrasts  w4th  the  sys- 
tems of  the  three  best-known  of  the  post-Kantians, 
Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  and  with  those  of  most 
other  German  metaphysicians.  Its  foremost  and 
distinguishing  merit  is  that  of  simplicity.  Here 
was  a  man  who  gave  to  the  w^orld  wdiat  he  saw  or 
seemed  to  see ;  the  others  planned  and  contrived 
what  to  give.  He  watched  and  listened,  and  let  the 
universe  tell  him  its  story  ;  they  cudgelled  their 
brains  to  construct  a  theory  of  the  universe.  He 
took  what  came  to  a  thoughtful,  if  morbid  obser- 
ver; they  went  a  hunting,  and  caught  airy  noth- 
ings.    He  studied  facts  ;  they  played  with  counters 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  115 

and  mampiilated  propositions.  The  aim  they  pro- 
posed to  themselves  was  to  schematize  existence. 
The  schemes  are  models  of  dialectic  ingenuity  ;  but 
forever  the  scheme  is  one,  and  existence  another. 

"  Grau,  Freund,  ist  alle  Theorie, 
Und  griin  des  Lebens  goldner  Bautn." 

Finer  and  finer  they  wove  their  abstractions ; 
but  the  warp  had  no  weft.  Mistrust  the  philos- 
ophy that  begins  too  far  off.  Hie  Bhodus,  hie 
saltus.  These  abstractionists  never  think  they 
can  do  enough  in  the  way  of  abstraction.  The 
mathematics,  one  would  say,  are  sufficiently  abs- 
tract. But  no,  the  mathematics  are  still  on  sen- 
suous ground,  they  occupy  themselves  with  num- 
ber and  space ;  these  they  must  have  before  they 
can  begin  their  work  ;  they  have  to  postulate  a 
point  or  a  space.  But  "  Philosophy,"  says  Hegel, 
"  takes  leave  of  this  last  vestige  of  the  actual." 
In  philosophy  thought  is  free  for  itself ;  it  re- 
nounces both  the  outer  and  the  inner  world.  In 
philosophy  it  is  not  permitted  to  begin  with  "  There 
is,  or  there  are."  So  these  transcendentalists  as- 
sume for  their  irov  aro)  a  position  outside  of  the 
actual ;  and  standing  on  nothing,  —  which,  accord- 
ing to  Hegel,  is  identical  with  Being,  —  they  erect 
their  paradigm,  showing  what  Being  should  be,  how 
begin  and  proceed  ;  and  having  finished  the  frame, 
invite  the  Actual  to  take  possession.    But  the  Actual 


116  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

stays  outside  ;  the  refractory  universe  refuses  to  be 
formulized. 

Few  writers  have  given  to  the  world  more  preg- 
nant thoughts  and  more  luminous  suggestions  than 
Hegel  in  his  Aesthetik,  his  Philosophy  of  History, 
his  Philosophy  of  Religion.  But  Hegel's  metaphysic, 
—  his  system,  distinctly  so-called,  —  is  a  tracery  of 
frost  compared  with  the  life-warm  realism  of  Scho- 
penhauer's doctrine.  Tlie  former  erects  his  elabo- 
rate structure  on  the  proposition  :  Absolute  being  is 
identical  with  nothing.  The  latter  starts  with  the 
premise  :  The  world  is  my  impression.  Which  be- 
ginning is  most  likely  to  lead  us  to  the  knowledge 
of  things  ?  And  the  knowledge  of  things,  not 
the  building  of  systems,  is  the  business  of  a  true 
philosophy. 

Closely  connected  with  this  earnestness  of  pur- 
pose is  the  singular  perspicuity  of  Schopenhauer's 
theory.  There  is  none  of  that  dialectic  agonizing, 
so  wearisome  in  Fichte  and  Hegel ;  that  anxious 
defining  for  the  start,  and  never  getting  under 
way  ;  that  endless  carving,  and  never  serving,  — 
no  mystification,  no  hair-splitting,  no  logical  antics, 
no  charlatanism,  no  word-juggling,  but  an  easy 
flow  of  meaning  and  demonstration,  like  the  talk 
of  a  man  who  is  full  of  his  material  and  has  not  to 
create  it  as  he  goes.  Profound  as  are  the  reaches 
of  his  theme,  there  is  no  obscurity  in  his  thought 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  117 

and  no  unintelligibleness  in  his  statement.  He  is 
always  sure  of  his  ground,  always  knows  what 
he  means,  and  leaves  no  doubt  of  his  meaning  in 
others. 

So  much  for  the  form  of  this  philosophy.  As  to 
its  contents,  its  positions,  its  doctrine,  I  must  also 
give  it  credit  for  one  or  two  things.  No  philoso- 
pher, I  think,  has  made  so  clear  the  connection 
between  the  inner  and  outer  world,  the  relation  of 
reason  to  sense,  of  thought  to  thing.  No  philo- 
sopher has  so  convincingly  illustrated  the  universal 
presence  and  immediate  action,  in  the  greatest  and 
the  least,  of  an  unseen  Power.  His  characteriza- 
tion of  that  Power  is  another  matter.  No  philoso- 
pher has  more  successfully  combated  materialism 
in  science,  substituting  dynamic  for  mechanic 
views  of  Nature,  finding  life  in  the  most  inert, 
and  resolving  the  most  fixed  into  free,  spontaneous 
action  of  the  universal  Will.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  maintains  the  physical  character  of  the  intellect, 
—  a  position  new  in  idealism,  and  one  not  likely 
to  pass  unchallenged,  but  which  constitutes  an 
essential  feature  of  liis  system.  The  intellect,  he 
insists,  is  physical,  the  will  metaphysical ;  the 
human  ego  the  resultant  of  the  two. 

In  my  judgment  of  this  system  I  separate  the 
psychological  in  it  from  the  ontological,  —  the 
world  as  impression  from  the  world  as  will.     My 


118  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

objection  relates  principally  to  the  latter.  The  fun- 
damental difficulty  and  falsity  which  most  critics, 
I  think,  must  find  in  it  is  the  inconceivableness 
of  will  without  consciousness,  without  intelligence, 
without  an  idea  or  purpose  to  guide  its  action. 
The  will  in  Schopenhauer's  system  is  an  empty 
abstraction.  Will  is  conceivable  only  as  the  act  of 
one  that  wills,  only  as  having  an  agent  behind  it. 
But  here  is  an  act  without  an  actor.  Precisely 
the  same  difficulty  which  meets  us  in  Hegel's  sys- 
tem —  that    system  so   scorned  by  Schopenhauer 

—  repeats  itself  in  his.  Hegel  assumed  as  the  Ding 
an  sicJi,  —  as  the  ultimate  and  absolute  thought, 

—  the  Begriff,  which  unfolds  itself  in  time,  and 
whose  evolution  is  the  universe.  But  Begriff  is 
inconceivable  without  a  Begreifender ;  a  "concept" 
supposes  an  aliquis  concipiens.  Precisely  so  will 
implies  an  aliquis  volens,  and  is  otherwise  as  incon- 
ceivable as  speech  without  speaker,  or  love  without 
lover. 

And  how  explain  the  first  movement  of  this 
will  ?  In  the  conscious  subject,  says  Schopenhauer, 
it  acts  by  motive  ;  in  the  unconscious  by  irritation. 
But  how  before  there  was  anything  to  move  or  to 
irritate  ?  Reason  requires  being  before  willing. 
Schopenhauer  puts  willing  before  being,  —  the  act 
before  the  actor.  I  can  suppose  a  universe  exist- 
ing from  all  eternity,  but  not  a  universe  that  willed 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  119 

itself  into  being,  that  willed  before  it  was ;  or,  I 
can  suppose,  and  must  suppose,  an  act  of  voli- 
tion before  the  world  was,  but  not  before  a  willing 
power. 

This  separation  of  the  fundamental  Will  from 
conscious  Intelligence  and  all  moral  attributes, — 
in  other  words,  the  atheism  of  Schopenhauer's  sys- 
tem, —  besides  its  inherent  falsity,  is  the  more  to 
be  regretted  as  being  incidental,  arbitrary,  not 
demanded  by  logical  consistency  or  any  interior 
necessity.  It  is  not  essential  to  the  system  itself, 
which,  but  for  this  flaw,  would  be  one  of  the  most 
rational,  consistent,  and  satisfactory  schemes  as 
yet  propounded  by  speculative  philosophy.  Apart 
from  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  a  blind,  uncon- 
scious will  to  have  been  the  origin  of  a  universe  in 
which  there  is  intelligence,  —  a  supposition  which 
violates  the  fundamental  principle,  that  what  is  in 
the  effect  must  be  in  the  cause, —  apart  from  this, 
one  sees  no  reason  for  divesting  the  universal  Will 
of  intelligence.  What  is  gained  by  putting  asun- 
der what  human  reason  from  everlasting  has  joined 
together  ?  Why  should  not  this  Power  that  works 
in  all  and  produces  all,  the  aboriginal,  sole,  endur- 
ing reality,  —  why  should  it  not  be  intelligent ;  why 
not  conscious  ;  why  not  God  ?  Schopenhauer  prides 
himself  on  his  discovery  of  the  compound  nature 
of  the  human   ego.     He  likens  his  merit  in  this 


120  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

respect  to  tliat  of  Lavoisier.  Lavoisier  discovered 
that  water,  once  regarded  as  simple,  is  in  fact  a 
compound  substance.  So  he,  Scliopenhauer,  claims 
to  have  discovered  that  the  ego^  once  supposed  to 
be  one  and  indivisible,  is  compounded  of  two  fac- 
tors. Will  and  Intelligence.  But  the  two  factors, 
though  distinguishable  in  thought,  are  insepara- 
ble in  fact.  There  is  never  a  human  ego  without 
them  both.  Why  suppose  them  sundered  outside 
of  the  human  ?  Why  not  suppose  them  united  in 
the  all-working,  infinite  Power  ?  Why  not  suppose 
the  all-working,  infinite  Power  to  be  precisely  the 
infinite  ego  of  theism  ?  Then  we  have  a  consis- 
tent, intelligible  system,  an  adequate  cause  for 
our  effect,  an  effect  which  truly  represents  the 
cause.  It  may  be  objected  that  conscious  intelli- 
gence added  to  will  does  not  relieve  the  difficulty 
of  inconceivableness  ;  that  intelhgencc  as  well  as 
will  can  only  be  conceived  as  quality  or  act ;  that 
that  conception  would  still  need  an  entity,  a  sub- 
stance in  which  these  qualities  inhere.  I  feel  the 
force  of  the  objection,  and  can  only  say  that  the 
difficulty  belongs  to  the  nature  of  the  subject. 
But  why  increase  the  difficulty  by  adding  the  in- 
conceivableness of  a  blind,  unconscious  will  as  the 
origin  and  ground  of  intelligent  being  ?  I  maintain 
that  unless  we  assume  the  existence  from  all  eter- 
nity of   a  universe  in  which  there  are  intelligent 


ARTHUR   SCHOPENHAUER.  121 

beings,  theism  only  can  explain  the  fact  of  existing 
intelligence.  The  effect  cannot  be  greater  than 
the  cause. 

I  condemn  in  this  philosophy  its  negation  of 
individuality.  It  recognizes  no  soul,  no  central 
and  persistent  principle  in  man  which  survives  all 
changes  and  is  indestructible.  The  phenomenon 
of  individual  consciousness  is  viewed  as  the  pro- 
duct of  cerebral  action  conditioned  by  each  organ- 
ism. It  is  the  temporary  self-limitation  of  the 
universal  Will,  which  elects  to  exist  for  awhile  in 
tliat  form,  then  leaves  and  destroys  it.  The  uni- 
versal Will  alone  is  real  and  immortal ;  all  indivi- 
duality is  only  seeming.  This  view  of  man  not 
only  contradicts  the  inward  voice  and  the  common 
sense  of  mankind,  but  it  leaves  unexplained  the 
peculiarity,  the  separatcness  and  persistency  of 
personal  types,  which  are  not  resolvable  into  dif- 
ferences of  expression  resulting  from  differences 
of  physical  condition. 

But  the  grand  and  fatal  objection  to  the  system 
is  the  moral  protest  it  elicits  from  every  unsophis- 
ticated mind.  I  do  not  arraign  its  pessimism  as 
such,  its  assertion  that  life  is  a  mistake,  existence 
an  evil,  misery  the  normal  condition  of  man.  All 
that,  though  not  a  necessary  consequence,  is  yet 
the  natural  outcome,  of  a  world  without  a  God. 
The  objection  regards  not  this  or  that  detail,  but 


122  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

the  fundamental  principle  from  which  they  result ; 
it  concerns  the  whole  system  as  a  contradiction  of 
eternal  reason.  Reason  demands  to  see  its  reflec- 
tion and  antitype  in  nature.  It  demands  an  intel- 
ligible motive  and  a  righteous  purpose  in  creation. 
It  demands  a  world  devised  and  presided  over  by 
reason,  and  tending  to  good,  —  a  world  whose  source 
is  love,  whose  method  is  wisdom,  and  whose  end  is 
blessing.  Schopenhauer's  system  flouts  these  just 
expectations,  repudiates  these  sacred  claims ;  it 
mocks  the  deepest  and  dearest  convictions  of  the 
heart.  All  worthy  beliefs,  all  high  ideals,  all  noble 
aspirations,  all  cherished  hopes,  it  ruthlessly  sets 
aside,  and  leaves  us  nothing  but  a  blind  and  pitiless 
force,  an  unreasoning,  unreasonable  fate,  a  cease- 
less, aimless  phantom,  dance,  in  which  we  are 
whirled  till  we  drop  and  disappear,  and  others 
whirl  in  our  place,  —  an  everlasting  funeral  pro- 
cession of   all   beings   from  death   to   death. 

Is  it  possible  that  human  nature  will  ever  con- 
tent itself  with  Schopenhauer's  answer  to  the 
question,  —  What  am  I  ?  and  whence  ?  and  why  ? 
Is  it  possible  that  human  reason  can  acquiesce  in 
a  system  like  this  ?  Not  while  a  dream  of  God- 
head yet  lingers  in  man's  thought ;  not  while  the 
heart  yet  beats  to  the  tune  of  immortality;  not 
while  the  way  is  open  for  a  better  solution  of  the 
problem  of  life ! 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  123 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM   AS  TAUGHT 
BY   VON   HARTMANN. 

DOES  good,  or  evil,  preponderate  in  tlie  lot  of 
man  ?  Is  the  human  world  advancing  to  mil- 
lennial peace,  or  tending  to  utter  ruin  ?  Or  does 
it  fluctuate  between  the  two,  alternately  gaining  and 
losing  in  certain  fixed  proportions,  which  no  lapse 
of  time,  no  social  adjustments,  and  no  cosmic  revo- 
lutions can  essentially  change  ?  Are  Ormuzd  and 
Ahriman  so  nearly  matched  that  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other  in  endless  ages  shall  acquire  supreme 
and  exclusive  sway. 

A  question  old  as  philosophy,  and  still  awaiting 
its  final  solution,  —  a  solution  based  on  irrefra- 
gable proofs,  and  admitting  of  no  appeal.  My  aim 
at  present  is  not  to  establish  a  thesis  on  the  sub- 
ject, but  to  criticise  the  position  of  those  who  main- 
tain the  doctrine  of  an  ever-growing  ascendency  of 
evil  in  human  life. 

Chief  among  these  at  present  is  Eduard  von 
Hartmann,  the  last  representative  of  the  great 
transcendental  movement  which  dates  with  Kant. 
Following  in  the  track  of  Schopenhauer,  with  less 


124  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM, 

originality,  but  finer  perceptions  and  superior  dialec- 
tic, Von  Hartmann  devotes  a  portion  of  his  "  Phil- 
osophy of  the  Unconscious  "  to  the  consideration 
of  the  question  whether  life  is  a  blessing ;  whether 
existence  or  non-existence  were  most  to  be  desired. 
After  long  debate  and  a  wide  review  of  the  subject, 
he  concludes  that  non-existence  is  preferable,  since 
the  misery  of  life  in  every  form  is  greatly  in  excess 
of  its  happiness.  And  this,  he  thinks,  would  be 
the  universal  judgment,  were  it  not  for  certain 
illusions  which  cast  their  glamour  on  the  mind, 
and  encourage  the  belief  that  life  is  a  good  to  be 
desired.  Three  stages  of  illusion  he  conceives  to 
be  the  source  of  this  deplorable  fallacy. 

The  first  stage  is  that  in  which  happiness  is 
viewed  as  something  whicli  has  been  attained  in 
this  present  world,  and  is  therefore  attainable  still 
within  the  limits  of  the  present  life.  The  second 
stage  is  that  in  which  happiness  is  believed  to  be 
reserved  for  some  future  transmundane  state.  The 
third  is  that  in  which  happiness  is  expected  to 
ensue  from  the  consummation  of  the  world's 
progressive   development. 

Under  the  first  head  our  philosopher  passes  in 
review  all  the  satisfactions  and  goods  of  life, — 
health,  competence,  honor,  power,  family  joys, 
science,  art,  religion.  Each  of  these  is  subjected 
to   a  rigorous  scrutiny :    its   yield   of   pleasure   is 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  125 

balanced  against  its  inevitable  sequence  of  pain ; 
and  in  each  case  the  result  is  a  minus,  depressing 
the  value  of  life  below  the  zero  of  indifference, 
and  proving  that,  on  the  whole,  it  is  a  misfortune 
to  be. 

There  is  nothing  original  in  this  conclusion. 
Voices  many  and  weighty,  ancient  and  modern, 
affirm  the  same.  ''  Wherefore  I  praised  the  dead," 
says  Ecclcsiastes,  "  more  than  the  living.  Yea, 
better  than  both  is  he  that  hath  not  been."  Says 
Socrates,  —  or  Plato  speaking  in  his  name,  — "  Let 
a  man  compare  all  the  other  days  and  nights  of  his 
life  with  some  night  in  which  he  slept  without  a 
dream :  how  few  will  he  find  that  were  passed  so 
pleasantly  as  that !  "  Sophocles  makes  the  chorus 
in  "  (Edipus  at  Colonus  "  say  :  "  Not  to  be  is  the 
supreme  word ;  the  next  best  is  that,  having  been 
born,  a  man  should  depart  as  quickly  as  possible 
thither  whence  he  come."  Byron  repeats  the 
sentiment   in  that  verse  of  despair, — 

"  Count  o'er  thy  days  from  anguish  free, 
And  know,  whatever  thou  hast  been, 
'  T  is  something  better  not  to  be." 

D'Alembert  speaks  of  the  "  malheur  d'etre."  Vol- 
taire gives  it  as  the  result  of  eighty  years'  experi- 
ence, that  suffering  is  the  end  of  life.  Hamlet 
thinks  that  only  the  dread  of  something  after 
death  can  restrain  tlie  suicidal  hand. 


126  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

To  these  and  similar  utterances  the  answer  is 
plain.  They  are  criticisms,  reflections  on  life  ;  and 
not  the  spontaneous  verdict  of  life  itself,  the  ver- 
dict which  a  healthy  nature  pronounces  on  life  as 
it  passes.  I  oppose  to  them  the  testimony  of  com- 
petent witnesses  ;  I  cite  expressions  of  abounding 
joy  in  being.  This  from  Emerson,  yet  unknown  to 
fame,  with  scant  means  and  a  doubtful  future : 
''Almost  I  fear  to  think  how  glad  I  am.  Give  me 
health  and  a  day,  and  I  will  make  the  pomp  of 
emperors   ridiculous." 

This  from  Charles  Lamb,  w^ho  had  had  his  full 
share  of  mortal  woe :  — 

"  I  am  in  love  with  this  green  earth,  the  face  of  town 
and  country,  the  unspeakable  rural  solitudes,  and  the  sweet 
security  of  streets,  I  would  set  up  my  tabernacle  here. 
Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks,  and  summer 
holidnys,  and  the  greenness  of  fields,  and  the  delicious 
juices  of  meats  and  fishes,  and  society,  and  the  cheerful 
glass,  and  fireside  conversations,  and  innocent  vanities  and 
jests." 

English  literature  has  no  soberer  poet  than 
Wordsworth,  —  a  man  whose  temperament  inclined 
to  melancholy ;  but  what  a  witness  to  the  value 
of  life  who  knew 

"  that  Nature  never  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her ;  '  t  is  her  privilege 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy  ;  for  she  can  so  inform 


CRITIQUE    OF  PESSIMISM.  127 

The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neitlier  evil  tongues, 
Eash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men, 
Nor  greetings  where  no  kindness  is,  nor  all 
The  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life. 
Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faitli  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings." 

All  this  the  pessimist  pronounces  a  delusion. 
Be  it  so.  All  reality,  so  far  as  the  individual  is 
concerned,  is  subjective.  The  value  of  life  for  me 
is  what  I  find  in  it.  If  it  yields  to  my  conscious- 
ness a  preponderance  of  good,  I  am  justified  in  my 
optimism.  We  may  be  deceived  as  to  the  ground 
of  our  joy  in  life,  but  the  joy  itself  is  no  delusion. 
I  concede  to  the  pessimist  that  pleasure  is  super- 
ficial. Enjoyment  plays  on  the  surface  of  life. 
Disturb  that  surface,  mar  it  at  any  point,  and 
straightway  the  underlying  pain  obtrudes.  And  by 
what  insignificant  trifles  the  surface-joy  is  dis- 
turbed !  In  the  midst  of  a  happy  day  let  the  small- 
est, scarcely  discernible  mote  lodge  itself  in  the  eye, 
let  the  nerve  of  a  tooth  be  exposed,  and  immedi- 
ately the  day  is  "  o'ercast,"  enjoyment  turns  to  pain. 
I  concede  to  the  pessimist  that  the  substance  of 
life  is  labor  and  hardness  ;  joy  is  but  the  sheen 
which  in  normal  states  it  assumes  in  our  conscious- 
ness. But  observe  that  life  by  a  law  of  its  own 
takes  on  that  sheen.     Call  it  delusion,  it  is  never- 


128  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

theless  a  stated  condition,  a  habit  of  mind,  our 
nature's  dower.  Observe,  too,  that  suicide  is  by 
common  consent  charged  to  insanity.  In  this  con- 
sent is  implied  the  prevailing  conviction  that  the 
good  of  life  exceeds  the  evil  thereof. 

Your  pessimists,  who  exhaust  their  ingenuity  in 
showing  that  existence  is  a  failure,  creation  a  mis- 
take, and  not-to-be  the  supreme  good,  have  been 
swift  to  secure  their  portion  of  the  goods  of  life, 
and  to  all  appearance  have  extracted  as  much  sat- 
isfaction therefrom  as  life  is  capable  of  yield- 
ing. Schopenhauer,  who  maintained  so  stoutly  that 
true  wisdom  consists  in  abnegation  of  the  will  to 
live,  exhibited  a  quite  inordinate  disinclination  to 
dying ;  he  clung  to  the  life  he  reviled  like  the 
limpet  to  the  rock. 

I  return  to  Yon  Hartmann.  His  first  alleged  stage 
of  illusion,  the  hope  of  happiness  in  this  present 
world,  concerns,  as  we  have  seen,  the  lot  of  the 
individual.  So  does  the  second,  the  hope  of  happi- 
ness hereafter  in  some  transmundane  state.  This 
involves  the  whole  question  of  a  future  life,  —  the 
discussion  of  which  would  far  exceed  the  scope  of 
this  essay.  I  pass  at  once  to  the  third  illusion, 
which  respects  the  future  of  the  human  race  on 
this  earth.  It  consists  in  supposing  that  a  better 
lot  awaits  mankind  in  the  consummation  of  the 
world's  history,  when  the  evils  which  now   afflict 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  129 

society  shall  one  by  one  be  done  away.  Von 
Hartmann  believes  in  no  such  result.  He  main- 
tains that  vice  and  misery,  so  far  from  abating, 
are  on  the  increase,  and  will  continue  to  increase. 
Theft  and  fraud  and  false  dealing,  in  spite  of  the 
penalties  attached  to  them,  are  becoming  ever 
more  frequent.  The  basest  selfishness  rends 
asunder  the  holiest  bonds  of  family  and  friend- 
ship whenever  it  comes  in  collision  with  them ; 
and  only  the  severer  punishments  decreed  by  the 
state  repress  the  more  atrocious  crimes  of  ruder 
ages.  These  too  immediately  break  forth,  reveal- 
ing the  innate  brutality  of  human  nature,  wherever 
the  bands  of  law  and  order  are  relaxed,  as  in  the 
Polish  revolution  and  in  the  closing  year  of  the 
American  civil  war.  He  anticipates  a  time  when 
theft  and  illegal  fraud  will  be  despised  as  vulgar 
and  clumsy  devices  by  the  more  adroit  rogues, 
who  will  know  how  to  bring  their  crimes  against 
property  into  harmony  with  the  letter  of  the  law ; 
and  so  on  to  the  end. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  endeavors  to  show  that  the 
agencies  at  work  for  the  melioration  of  the  social 
condition,  —  science,  art,  discoveries  and  inventions, 
improved  agriculture,  increased  facilities  of  com- 
munication, steam,  railroad,  telegraph,  —  inasmuch 
as  they  create  as  many  wants  as  they  satisfy,  leave 
the  net  result  of  human  weal  unchanged.     Medical 

9 


130  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

art  advances,  but  cannot  keep  pace  with  the  swifter 
progress  of  chronic  disease.  Agricultural  and  me- 
chanical improvements,  as  fast  as  they  increase 
the  means  of  support,  promote  the  growth  of  popu- 
lation, which,  on  the  Malthusian  principle,  is  forever 
outstripping  them.  With  the  growth  of  population 
come  all  the  inevitable  ills  which  excess  of  pop- 
ulation entails.  Political  science  can  yield  but 
negative  results.  Suppose  the  perfect  state  were 
realized,  the  political  problem  solved,  we  should 
have  only  the  frame,  not  the  filling.  Men  do  not 
live  to  govern  themselves,  but  govern  themselves  to 
live.  Looking  in  other  directions  for  possible  com- 
pensation, he  foresees  that  the  satisfactions  of  in- 
tellect and  taste  derived  from  science  and  art  will 
diminish  with  the  necessary,  inevitable,  and  ever- 
growing degradation  of  science  and  art  which 
must  ensue  from  the  dilettantism  which  is  every- 
where supplanting  genius.  And  as  for  the  conso- 
lations of  religion,  —  what  will  become  of  them 
when  belief  in  the  truths  of  religion,  as  must  inevi- 
tably happen  with  the  progress  of  intellectual  cul- 
ture, has  died  out  ?  In  fine,  as  with  the  progress 
of  human  development,  riches  and  luxury  increase, 
there  will  be  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  sensi- 
bility of  the  nervous  system,  and  thence  of  neces- 
sity an  excess  of  sensible  pain  over  sensible  pleasure. 
With  the  dying-out  of  the  old  illusions  there  will 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  131 

come  intense  consciousness  of  the  poverty  of  life, 
of  the  vanity  of  most  of  its  joys  and  aspirations. 
Not  only  will  there  be  increase  of  misery,  but  — 
what  is  more  to  the  purpose  —  increase  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  misery.  .  .  .  The  history  of  the  indi- 
vidual will  repeat  itself  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
As  the  individual  in  childhood  lives  in  the  present ; 
then,  as  youth,  revels  in  transcendental  ideals ; 
then,  as  man,  seeks  fame,  possession,  practical 
knowledge ;  and,  finally,  in  old  age,  having  come 
to  perceive  the  vanity  of  all  things,  longs  only  for 
peace,  and  lays  his  weary  head  to  rest,  —  so  with 
the  human  race.  There  are  evident  signs  of  senes- 
cence, he  thinks,  in  the  human  race.  Who  can 
doubt  that  after  a  period  of  mighty,  virile  activity, 
there  will  come  to  mankind  an  old  age,  when, 
living  on  the  fruits  of  the  past,  they  will  enter  on 
a  period  of  ripe  contemplation,  and,  embracing 
in  one  view  all  the  sorrows,  so  wildly  stormed 
through,  of  their  past  career,  will  comprehend  the 
utter  vanity  of  tlie  once-proposed  aims  of  their 
striving.  But  observe,  he  says,  the  difference 
between  the  race  and  the  individual.  Senile 
humanity  will  have  no  heirs  to  whom  it  may 
bequeathe  its  accumulated  wealth,  no  cliildren, 
no  grandchildren,  the  love  of  whom  might  solace 
its  decline.  Then,  with  the  sublime  melancholy 
commonly   witnessed   in   men   of  genius   and  the 


132  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

intellectually  elevated  among  the  aged,  humanity 
will  hover  as  it  were  a  transfigured  spirit  over  its 
own  body,  and,  like  (Edipus,  in  anticipation  of  the 
peace  of  non-existence,  will  feel  the  sorrows  of 
being  as  it  were  the  sorrows  of  another,  not  its 
own,  —  will  no  longer  know  passion,  but  only  com- 
passion with  itself.  This  is  that  heavenly  serenity, 
that  divine  repose  which  breathes  in  Spinoza's  ethic, 
where  the  passions  are  swallowed  up  in  the  abyss 
of  reason,  because  they  have  been  clearly  and  in- 
telligibly grasped  in  ideas.  But  suppose  this 
state  of  dispassionateness  reached  ;  suppose  pas- 
sion to  be  transfigured  into  compassion  with  one's 
self :  it  does  not  therefore  cease  to  be  sorrow. 
Even  freedom  from  pain  mankind  grown  old  will 
not  have  attained;  pure  spirit  they  will  not  have 
become.  In  spite  of  weakness  and  decrepitude, 
they  must  still  toil  on  in  order  to  live,  and  yet 
will  not  know  for  what  end  to  live.  Outgrown 
their  illusions,  they  will  have  nothing  more  to 
expect  from  life.  Convinced  at  last  of  the  folly 
of  all  their  striving,  they  will  come  to  despair  of 
happiness,  and  only  long  for  absolute  painlessness, 
for  annihilation,  for  Nirvana. 

When,  following  Yon  Hartmann,  I  reached  this 
conclusion,  there  came  to  my  thought  the  curse 
which  Faust  thunders  against  the  world,  with 
all  its   illusive  joys  and  hopes,   and  I  seemed  to 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  133 

hear  the  wail  of  the  spirits  in  response  to  that 
curse,  — 

"  Woe  !   woe  ! 
Destroyed  it  thou  hast, 
The  beautiful  world  ; 
With  the  blow  of  thy  fist 
Into  ruin  hast  hurled. 

Sadly  we  the  lost  surrender.  ' 

Fairer  now, 

Earth's  son,  in  splendor 

Rarer  now, 

Oh,  recreate  it ! 

In  thine  own  bosom  build  it  again  !  " 

This,  then,  is  the  view  of  human  destiny  pro- 
pounded by  the  latest  soothsayer  of  the  transcen- 
dental line ;  this  is  the  philosophy  taught  in  a 
work  which  passed  through  seven  editions  in  as 
many  years,  —  a  philosophy  which  evidently  rests 
on  a  pathological  foundation.  To  the  question, 
"  Is  life  worth  living  ?  "  it  was  wittily  answered  : 
"  That  depends  on  the  liverT  One  can  hardly  help 
suspecting  an  unsound  condition  of  body  affecting 
mental  vision  in  a  writer  who  solemnly  predicts 
the  moral  ruin  of  mankind  on  the  ground  of  cer- 
tain existing  imperfections  and  wrongs.  Were  I 
dealing  with  a  theist,  I  should  say  that  our  idea  of 
God  implies  the  preponderance  and  growth  of  good 
in  all  the  worlds.  But  Von  Hartmann  is  not  a 
theist,  although  the  "  All-Eine,"  the  central  intelli- 
gence of  his  system,  supposed  to  act  with  infallible 


134  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

wisdom,  is  a  great  advance  on  the  blind  Will  of 
Schopenhauer's  philosophy ,i  a  nearer  approach  to 
the  God  of  theism.  Putting  out  of  view,  then,  the 
idea  of  infinite  wisdom,  power,  and  love  presiding 
over  and  guiding  the  world's  history,  I  oppose 
to  tlie  pessimist  view  this  weighty  consideration, 
overlooked  by  Yon  Hartmann,  that  moral  power 
is  in  its  very  nature  cumulative,  an  ever-increasing 
quantity.  Material  force,  as  Des  Cartes,  I  think, 
was  the  first  to  point  out,  is  a  constant  quantity. 
So  much  and  no  more  of  it  there  has  been  since 
the  first  impulsion  given  to  the  matter  of  which 
the  world  is  composed.  All  the  forces  now  at 
work  in  the  world  —  correlated  one  with  another, 
as  science  teaches  —  are  propagations  in  all  direc- 
tions of  that  primal  impact.  In  one  form  or  ano- 
ther it  survives,  and  can  never  cease  and  never 
increase.  Given  an  access  of  it  in  one,  and  there 
is  a  proportionate  diminution  of  it  in  another.  If 
you  increase  the  speed  of  your  engine,  you  diminish 
your  supply  of  heat ;  if  you  overtax  your  brain, 
you  reduce  the  vitality  of  other  organs. 

But  moral  force  is  cumulative  ;   its  exercise  in 

1  Von  Hartmann  was  too  acute  not  to  see  that  will  without  a 
concept  of  the  thing  willed  is  an  absurdity.  Strange  that  his  own 
substitute  of  a  seeing  and  understanding,  though  unconscious, 
Will  should  be  represented  as  infallibly  wise  only  in  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  while  wholly  irrational  in  its  end,  —  a  world 
of  preponderant  evil. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  135 

one  form  by  one  individual  not  only  does  not  lessen, 
but  increases,  its  supply  in  another.  If  A  puts 
forth  his  moral  power  in  an  act  of  self-sacrifice,  his 
supply  of  that  force  is  not  exhausted,  but  rather 
increased  thereby  ;  and  B,  who  witnesses  and  pro- 
fits by  that  sacrifice,  experiences  in  himself  an 
accession  of  moral  life.  We  may  trace,  I  think,  the 
growth  of  that  life  through  all  the  ages  of  human 
history.  In  primitive  man  it  is  found  at  its  min- 
imum. The  savage  state  has  feeble  perceptions  of 
the  moral  law  :  it  is  a  state  of  comparative  inno- 
cence ;  since  where  there  is  no  law  there  is  no  sin, 
but  a  very  immoral  state.  The  moral  sense  is  re- 
stricted to  good  faith  with  friends  and  allies,  and 
avoidance  of  flagrant  trespass  on  others'  rights. 
As  civilization  advances,  society,  imperilled  by 
individual  licence,  protects  itself  with  laws,  and 
promotes  social  ends  with  exactions  and  require- 
ments which  make  life  more  complex,  but  also 
more  moral.  Acts  which  before  were  performed 
without  scruple  become  crimes.  By  these  prohibi- 
tions and  requirements  the  moral  sense  is  educated. 
Gradually  the  stringency  of  obligation  is  transferred 
from  the  civil  statute  to  the  private  conscience. 
With  increase  of  population  and  increase  of  luxury, 
it  is  true, demoralizing  influences  set  in;  and  when 
these  become  excessive  they  disorganize  society 
and  subvert  the  state,  as  has  happened  in  one  and 


136  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

another  country  in  the  course  of  the  world's 
history.  But  humanity  rallies,  it  recovers  itself, 
it  takes  warning  from  the  past;  the  moral  senti- 
ment reacts  on  these  corruptions ;  it  strives  and 
succeeds  to  keep  the  corrupting  tendencies  in 
check.  Gradually  moral  capital  is  accumulated  ;  is 
vested  in  public  opinion,  in  memories,  books,  and 
institutions,  and  furnishes  a  guaranty  against 
future  dissolutions  of  the  civil  bond.  For  want  of 
this  capital  ancient  states,  Assyria,  Greece,  and 
Rome,  went  down ;  by  means  of  it  modern  states 
subsist,  and  have,  so  far  as  internal  agencies  are 
concerned,  an  indefinite  lease  of  life.  Evil  is  self- 
limited  and  self-destructive ;  the  good  in  human 
nature  is  self -conserving  and  self-increasing.  If 
modern  society  is  more  compact,  and  rests,  as  it 
evidently  does,  on  a  firmer  basis  than  did  society 
in  ancient  time,  it  is  to  be  inferred  that  society  is 
more  moral  now  than  then,  and  that  increase  of 
moral  power  affords  a  presumption  of  further 
increase  from  age  to  age.  Yon  Hartmann  insists 
that  egoism,  however  it  may  change  its  face  and 
methods,  has  lost  nothing  of  its  virus  with  tlie 
lapse  of  time.  I  maintain,  on  the  contrary,  and 
think  it  can  be  shown,  that  "  altruism,"  or  care  for 
others,  care  for  the  common  weal,  is  gradually 
making  head  against  egoism.  And  herein  I  find  a 
refutation  of  the  pessimist  view  of  human  destiny. 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  137 

For  society,  I  repeat,  subsists  by  moral  force  ;  and 
increase  of  that  force  in  the  shape  of  care  for  the 
commonweal  guarantees,  in  the  absence  of  any 
physical  derangement  of  the  globe,  the  growth  of 
social  well-being  in  all  coming  time. 

Another  consideration  which  suggests  itself  in 
opposition  to  the  pessimist  theory,  is  the  fact  of 
the  timely  appearance,  at  certain  points  in  the 
world's  history,  of  exceptional  individuals,  whose 
word  and  life  have  been  a  healing  and  reviving 
power  in  the  world.  I  waive  the  idea  of  what  is 
called  divine  interposition  in  such  phenomena. 
Regarding  them  simply  as  historic  facts,  I  see  in 
them  proofs  of  a  self-renewing  power  in  human 
nature,  and  the  promise,  as  human  need  may  re- 
quire and  social  exigencies  prompt,  of  similar  revi- 
vals in  time  to  come.  Whatever  opinion  we  may 
have  formed  of  Christianity,  its  origin,  its  present 
status,  its  future  prospects,  no  faithful  student  of 
history  will  deny  that  the  Christian  movement  did 
impart  to  human  society  a  moral  leaven  which 
served  to  regenerate  the  world  by  reinforcing  those 
saving  agencies  of  faith  and  love  whose  loss  is 
disintegration  and  moral  death.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  each  successive  reformation  which  has 
reproduced  the  Christian  idea  in  subsequent  time. 
The  experience  of  the  past  seems  to  warrant  the 
presumption  that  social  and  moral  necessities  will 


138  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

always  elicit  a  remedial  power  from  the  unex- 
plored depths  and  incalculable  forces  of  the  hu- 
man soul,  and  that  when  things  are  at  the  worst 
redemption  is  near. 

Add  to  this  that  some  of  the  worst  evils  which 
afflict  society  are  accidental,  not  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  man  or  the  nature  of  things,  but  super- 
induced by  vicious  custom,  and  are  likely  to  find 
their  remedy  at  last  in  a  truer  perception  of  their 
nature  and  law,  and  the  application  of  social  sci- 
ence to  the  sources  whence  they  spring.  For 
example,  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  to  social 
well-being  in  this  country  at  present  is  the  abuse 
of  alcoholic  stimulants,  drunkenness,  which  brutal- 
izes its  victim,  poisons  the  springs  of  family  life, 
and  constitutes  a  source  so  prolific  of  pauperism 
and  crime.  Philanthropy  has  labored  in  vain  to 
abolish  this  evil  by  legislative  action  forbidding 
the  supply,  instead  of  seeking,  by  discovery  of 
its  cause,  to  obviate  the  demand.  So  long  as  the 
demand  continues,  in  spite  of  legislation,  the  sup- 
ply will  be  found.  I  cannot  believe  that  the  mis- 
chief of  intemperance,  wide-spread  and  deep-seated 
as  it  is,  is  past  correction,  if  once  its  nature  be 
rightly  understood,  and  scientific  treatment  invoked 
for  its  cure.  And  what  a  load  of  misery  will  be 
lifted  from  the  world,  what  a  melioration  of  the 
social  climate,  prophetic  of  better  years  and  finer 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  139 

growths,  will  be  achieved  with  the  extirpation  of 
this  vice  ! 

In  fine,  the  pessimist  view,  thongh  a  natural 
accompaniment  of  atheism,  is  not  a  necessary  fruit 
of  even  that  dreary  stock.  Human  nature  itself, 
without  the  supposition  of  a  God ;  human  nature 
as  manifest  in  history  and  interpreted  by  rea- 
son, —  pleads  against  it,  and  furnishes,  I  think,  its 
sufiicient  refutation. 

But  whilst  I  am  forced  by  these  considerations 
to  cast  the  horoscope  of  human  life  more  auspi- 
ciously than  our  German  pessimist  draws  it,  I 
admit  an  element  of  truth  in  his  philosophy  which 
may  temper  the  extravagance  of  superficial  optim- 
ism, and  tinge  with  soberer  hues  the  vulgar  vision 
of  the  "  good  time  coming."  Von  Hartmann  him- 
self, in  an  essay  subsequent  to  his  main  work, 
from  which  I  have  quoted,  vindicates  the  doctrine 
of  pessimism  against  the  charge  of  presenting  an 
altogether  comfortless  and  discouraging  view  of 
life.  He  argues  that  self,  as  expressed  in  the  will, 
is  the  source  of  all  our  woes  ;  that  since  moral 
perfection,  or  the  supreme  good,  consists  in  or 
requires  the  entire  surrender  of  self,  the  pessimis- 
tic view,  which  promotes  that  surrender,  by  expos- 
ing the  futility  of  all  our  wishes  and  the  grief  that 
is  born  of  the  private  will,  is  stimulating,  bracing, 


140  PHILOSOPHIC  ATHEISM. 

It  is  true  that  self  is  the  source  of  the  greater 
part  of  human  misery ;  but  equally  true  it  is  that 
the  highest  satisfaction  has  its  origin  there.  Ex- 
tinguish self,  and  we  escape  the  pangs  of  disap- 
pointment, the  unsatisfied  longing,  the  frustrate 
effort,  the  misery  of  wounded  pride,  of  ingratitude 
and  neglect ;  but  we  also  miss  the  stimulus  of  a 
noble  and  sanctified  ambition.  Moral  elevation 
does  not  guarantee  happiness  in  the  vulgar  sense 
of  that  word  ;  but  neither  does  material  prosperity 
assure  it.  Suppose  that  prosperity  consummated 
the  world  over  for  all  men ;  make  earth  a  paradise  ; 
drive  want  from  the  face  of  it,  and  ignorance  and 
vice ;  let  competence  be  secured  to  all ;  build  pala- 
ces for  hovels  ;  let  climate  be  attempered  by  art 
to  perpetual  blandncss ;  let  there  be  no  forced 
tasks,  no  chiding  of  the  laggard  will,  no  painful 
bracing  up  of  the  dissolute  mind,  but  only  duties 
which  in^'ite,  and  work  which  is  play,  —  fashion  a 
world  after  your  own  heart ;  and  know  that  a  day 
in  that  world  will  have  the  same  proportion  of  joy 
and  pain  that  a  day  has  in  this.  Our  joys  and  our 
sorrows  spring  from  the  same  root ;  in  cultivating 
the  one  we  cultivate  the  other  also.  There  is  a 
root  of  bitterness  in  human  life  which  no  change  of 
circumstance  and  no  improvement  in  the  outward 
condition  can  eradicate.  And  perhaps  if  we  rightly 
understood  the  constitution  and  the  wants  of  man 


CRITIQUE   OF  PESSIMISM.  141 

we  should  not  wish  it  eradicated.  It  is  the  bitter 
oil  in  the  kernel  that  gives  the  peculiar  flavor  to 
the  fruit.  That  remnant  of  bitterness  in  the  lot 
of  man,  so  far  from  depreciating  the  value  of 
human  life,  enhances  its  significance  by  supplying 
the  needful  tonic  without  which  the  spirit  would 
rest  and  rust  in  sluggish  contentment  with  the 
present,  and,  ceasing  to  aspire,  would  forfeit  the 
prize  of  its  higher  calling.  The  end  of  man  is 
not  enjoyment,  but  discipline,  education,  growth, 
effective  service.  Given  a  lot  of  unbroken  ease, 
and  life  would  not  be  worth  living. 


I 


MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 


"Nun  soil  ich  gar  von  Haus  zu  Haus 
Die  losen  Blatter  alle  sammeln."  —  Goethe. 


LIFE  AND   CHAEACTER  OF  AUGUSTINE. 

'T^HE  formation  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the 
-^  early  ages  of  its  history  was  a  process  in- 
volving many  elements  besides  Christianity  proper, 
as  represented  in  the  Gospels. 

Jewish  cabalism,  Greek  and  Roman  polytheism, 
Alexandrian  mysticism,  Persian  dualism,  Indian 
gymnosophism,  are  among  the  confluents  which 
emptied  their  tributary  streams  into  this  provi- 
dential river,  and  became  coefficients  of  a  faith 
whose  triumphs  are  owing  in  part  to  its  having 
appropriated  all  that  was  vital  in  foregone  and 
contemporary  creeds  and  rites. 

And  not  only  did  the  Church  inoculate  itself 
with  ideas  from  without ;  it  also  absorbed  into  its 
system  and  transubstantiated  into  its  own  kind, 
by  "  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus," 
the  blood  and  temper  of  many  climes.  The  dream- 
ing Oriental,  the  volatile  Greek,  the  practical  Ro- 
man, the  impetuous  Goth,  the  fiery  African,  are 
all  represented  in  its  organism. 

10 


146  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

To  the  last-named  country  the  Church  is  in- 
debted for  three,  at  least,  of  its  greater  lights, — 
Tertullian,  Cyprian,  Augustine.  The  first  distin- 
guished by  his  moral  purism ;  the  second  by  his 
stout  defence  of  Episcopal  authority ;  the  third  by 
his  theology  and  his  great  example. 

Saint  Augustine,  whose  life  and  character  I  now 
propose  to  discuss,  has  become  identified  with  an 
influence  far  exceeding  that  of  his  compatriots,  and 
coextensive  with  the  Christian  Church.  The  morals 
of  Christendom  refused  to  adopt  the  stern  require- 
ments of  the  eloquent  Montanist ;  its  ecclesiastical 
polity  soon  transcended  the  views  of  the  fervid  Car- 
tliaginian.  But  the  doctrine  of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo 
has  survived  the  decline  of  the  Papacy ;  has  repro- 
duced itself  in  the  formularies  of  Protestantism ; 
has  been  transplanted  from  the  Old  World  to  the 
New  by  the  fostering  care  of  the  Puritans,  and 
constitutes  to  this  day  the  staple  of  American 
theology.  Since  the  days  of  the  Apostles  no 
Christian  ecclesiastic  has  exerted  such  sway  or 
obtained  such  following. 

Externally,  the  life  of  Saint  Augustine  was  less 
eventful  than  those  of  most  men  of  note  in  his 
time,  —  that  maelstrom  of  history,  which  tossed 
individuals  and  nations  like  foam-flakes  in  its 
boiling  eddies.  The  deep  interior  being  of  the  man 
was  very  imperfectly   expressed   in  his   fortunes, 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  147 

and  had  no  correspondent  developments  in  his 
external  history.  He  was  one  of  those  whose  life 
is  a  continual  drawing  from  the  circumference 
to  the  centre. 

Tagaste,  an  obscure  corner  in  the  north  of 
Africa,  not  far  from  the  site  of  old  Carthage,  is 
illustrated  by  the  birth  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Fathers.  Its  historic  insignificance,  although 
mentioned  by  Pliny,  excludes  it  from  the  ancient 
maps.  Cellarius,  the  most  faithful  of  geographers, 
ignores  it ;  French  soldiers  under  General  Randon, 
in  1844,1  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  since  the 
Yandals,  uncover  its  site ;  and  Spruner,  the  latest 
authority,  has  noted  its  locality  in  that  part  of 
what  is  now  Algeria,  where  Algiers  and  Tunis 
join.  The  13th  November,  354,  is  the  date  of  his 
birth.  Cast  amid  humble  conditions,  the  great- 
est of  earthly  blessings  was  vouchsafed  to  his 
childhood,  —  a  pious  mother,  whose  dearest  wish 
was  to  see  the  son  of  her  affections  safely  folded 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Her  life 
was  breathed  in  prayers  for  this  end;  and  the 
strongest  human  influence  which  Augustine  expe- 
rienced was  the  prayers  of  Monica.  Gratefully 
conscious  of  her  agency  in  securing  so  able  a  de- 
fender of  the  faith,  the  Church  has  raised  to 
"  sainted  seats "  the  "  Elect  Lady,"  whom  filial 
1  Poujoulat :  Histoire  de  Saint  Augustin. 


148  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

gratitude  had  already  canonized.  Few  worthies 
in  the  Christian  calendar  have  earned  more  dearly 
their  title  to  be  there.  The  name  of  Monica  sug- 
gests the  impersonation  of  all  feminine  and  Chris- 
tian graces.  We  figure  to  ourselves  a  form  and 
face  such  as  the  Pre-Raphaelites  would  have  loved 
to  paint,  with  as  much  of  spirit  as  flesh  and  blood 
can  take  up,  and  as  little  of  flesh  and  blood  as 
an  earth-inhabiting  spirit  can  make  itself  visible 
by.  With  a  brute  of  a  husband,  passionate  at 
home  and  unfaithful  abroad,  and  three  children, 
of  whom  at  least  one  gifted  but  turbulent  boy  was 
a  source  of  ceaseless  anxiety ;  with  a  feeble  body 
and  a  sensitive  spirit ;  with  small  means  and  large 
requirements ;  with  little  wit,  great  cares,  and,  as 
her  conscientious  nature  conceived  them,  awful 
responsibilities,  —  the  burdened  soul  had  fainted 
within  her  unless  she  had  ''believed  to  see  the 
goodness  of  the  Lord."  But  she  believed,  and  did 
not  faint.  She  administered  with  untiring  dili- 
gence her  arduous  economy,  and  tended  her  little 
flock,  and  still  clung  to  the  horns  of  the  altar. 
She  encountered  her  stormy  husband  with  gentle- 
ness for  wrath,  and  soft  persuasion  for  ingratitude 
and  sin.  She  waited  and  wept,  and  hoped  and 
suffered,  and  still  hoped.  The  substance  of  her 
life  was  sorrow,  and  the  form  of  it  was  prayer; 
the  spirit  of  it  love,  and  the  strength  of  it  patience, 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  149 

and  the  grace  of  it  meekness.  Hers  was  the  pure 
soul  which  an  elder  poet  compares  to  a  ''  drop  of 
Orient  dew,"  which,  lighting  on  a  flower, 

"  Scarce  touching  where  it  lies, 
But  gazing  hack  upon  the  skies, 
Shines  with  a  mournful  light 

Till  the  warm  sun  pities  its  pain, 

And  to  the  skies  exhales  it  back  again." 

Her  pious  wishes,  long  deferred,  were  fulfilled 
at  last.  Her  husband,  who  had  lived  in  profession, 
as  in  character,  a  Pagan,  solicited  and  received 
before  his  death  the  regenerating  water  of  Chris- 
tian baptism.  And  at  last,  after  thirty  long  years 
of  watching  and  weeping,  her  favorite,  Aurelius, 
with  whose  second  birth,  as  he  tells  us,  she  had 
travailed  more  sorely  than  with  his  first,  was  like- 
wise united  to  Christ  through  the  baptism  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Her  mission  was  accomplished 
when  this  son  of  her  tears,  disengaged  from  the 
enemy's  tares,  and  bound  in  a  fair  church-sheaf, 
was  now  at  length  fit  for  the  garden  of  the  Lord, 
—  a  consummation  to  which  (unconsciously  to  her- 
self and  to  him)  she  had  contributed  more  than 
all  the  persuasions  of  Ambrose,  and  all  the  refine- 
ments of  his  own  dialectic  mind. 

0  woman,  great  is  thy  faith !  0  loving,  sad, 
and  patient  Monica ;  long  suffering,  late  rewarded  ! 


150  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Who  more  entitled  than  thou  to  sit  in  sainted 
seats?  Who  more  than  thou  ever  strove  and 
prayed  ?  Who  has  so  nobly  illustrated  the  media- 
torial office  of  woman,  sliowing  how,  as  it  is 
written, 

"  The  ever  womanly 
Draweth  us  on  1 " 

Young  Augustine  mixed  at  school  and  at  play 
with  the  boys  of  Tagaste ;  and,  if  eminent  at  all 
among  his  companions,  was  not  distinguished  by 
any  saintly  tendencies.  The  saint  in  him  was 
latent,  dormant;  the  boy  was  patent,  and  wide 
awake. 

The  boy  loved  play,  and  found  study  a  weari- 
ness of  the  flesh.  Greek  was  his  aversion ;  the 
circus  and  the  theatre  his  delight.  A  sportive 
boyhood  might  not  portend  any  lack  of  manly 
virtue.  Of  graver  import  are  the  fibbing  and 
thieving  which  those  "  Confessions  "  of  his  reveal. 
All  this  he  repents  in  after  years  with  a  penitence 
almost  morbid,  and  scarcely  consistent  with  the 
Augustinian  theory  of  human  nature,  which,  by 
denying  to  man,  unrenewed  by  superadded  and 
exotic  grace,  not  only  goodness,  but  the  faculty 
of  goodness,  might  seem  to  preclude  all  occasion 
of  remorse.  With  especial  compunction  he  recalls 
the  robbery  of  a  pear-tree,  committed  in  a  spirit 
of  juvenile  frolic,  with  some  of  his  associates.     In 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  151 

the  excess  of  his  self-condemnation  he  refines 
upon  his  guilt,  and,  dissecting  the  act  with  retro- 
spective analysis,  finds  more  of  evil  in  the  heart 
of  it  tlian  appears  on  the  face.  Why  should  he 
steal  his  neighbor's  pears  ?  He  had  better  pears 
of  his  own  at  home.  It  could  not  have  been  for  the 
sake  of  the  fruit,  which  was  not  eaten.  It  must, 
therefore,  have  been  the  love  of  sin  as  such,  —  the 
mere  delight  in  evil,  —  which  prompted  the  act. 

"  Behold  my  heart,  0  God !  let  my  heart  tell  thee 
what  it  sought  when  gratuitously  evil,  having  no  temp- 
tation to  ill  but  the  ill  itself.  .  .  .  What,  then,  did 
wretched  I  so  love  in  thee,  thou  theft  of  mine,  thou  deed 
of  darkness  ?  .  .  .  Fair  were  those  pears ;  but  not  them 
did  my  wretched  soid  desire.  For  I  had  store  of  better, 
and  I  gathered  them  only  that  I  might  steal.  For  when  I 
gathered  them  I  flung  them  away ;  my  only  feast  therein 
being  my  own  sin,  which  I  was  pleased  to  enjoy.  For 
if  aught  of  those  pears  came  within  my  mouth,  what 
SAveetened  it  was  sin." 

We  cite  the  passage  as  equally  characteristic  of 
the  boy  and  the  man :  the  act  itself,  of  the  boy ; 
the  reflection  upon  it,  of  the  man.  The  boy,  head- 
long, impetuous,  thoughtless,  vicious:  the  man, 
regenerate,  holy,  God-seeking,  but  self-dissecting, 
morbid.  A  healthy  feeling  would  have  wrought 
a  more  perfect  self-forgiveness.  A  healthy  judg- 
ment would  distinguish  between  youthful  love  of 


152  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

fun   indulged   to  vicious  excess,  and  love  of  evil 
as  such. 

There  is  in  all  men  something  immovable  and 
immutable, —  an  individuality  common  to  the  child, 
to  the  youth,  and  the  man,  —  a  backbone  of  the 
character  which  remains  unaltered  through  all  the 
revolutions  that  sweep  over  the  heart  and  through 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  life.  We  may  change  our 
opinions,  our  habits,  our  pursuits,  our  tastes;  we 
may  change  from  heedless  to  earnest,  from  sen- 
sual to  moral,  from  godless  to  devout :  but  we 
cannot  change  the  radical  innermost  self.  We  bear 
not  the  root,  but  the  root  us.  Religion  may  alter 
the  expression  of  the  character,  but  not  the  type ; 
may  convert  the  worldling  into  a  saint,  but  not 
one  individual  into  another.  There  is  a  ground 
which  survives  through  all  the  metamorphoses  of 
nature  and  of  grace.  As  it  was  in  childhood,  it 
remains  in  old  age ;  as  birth  delivered  it  to  this 
world,  death  will  hand  it  over  to  the  next.  We 
find  in  Augustine  the  child  one  quality,  at  least, 
which  especially  distinguishes  Augustine  the  man, 
—  ambition.  The  same  passion,  which,  sanctified 
by  heavenly  grace,  engendered  the  pure  and  noble 
aspirations  of  his  riper  years,  inspired  also  the 
literary  labors  of  his  youth,  and  was  manifest 
even  in  the  boy,  in  scorn  of  inferiority,  in  love 
of  boyish  distinction,  in  eager  efforts  to  excel  in 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  153 

games ;  for  which  end,  as  he  tells  us,  he  often 
had  recourse  to  trickery  and  deceit.  Ambition 
is  a  quality  indifferent  in  itself.  Its  character 
depends  on  the  qualities  with  which  it  is  asso- 
ciated ;  on  the  course  it  adopts ;  the  direction 
given  it ;  the  objects  at  which  it  aims.  Side  by 
side  with  this  quality  in  Augustine  there  was 
early  developed  a  principle  of  life  by  which  it 
was  refined  and  ennobled,  and  consecrated  to  the 
highest  ends.  That  principle  was  love  of  God  — 
or  not  so  much  love,  at  present,  as  a  certain 
vague  desire  and  aspiration  —  the  dawn  of  that 
future  passionate  striving  and  longing  after  God 
which  breathes  from  every  page  of  the  "  Confes- 
sions," and  which,  after  his  conversion,  expressed 
itself  in  all  the  tenor  of  his  life.  If  ever  a  human 
soul,  in  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  panted  after 
God,  the  soul  of  Augustine  did  surely  so  pant. 
From  earliest  childhood,  when  his  only  petition 
was  to  be  saved  from  chastisement  at  school, 
through  all  the  aberrations  of  his  youth,  the  idea 
of  God  was  familiar  to  his  thoughts,  and  the  want  of 
God  was  the  secret  of  his  heart.  Many  a  devout 
soul  has  found  its  private  experience  expressed 
by  him  in  those  words,  often  echoed  and  often 
huitated,  —  words  which  a  well-known  Moravian 
hymn  has  fitly  paraphrased,  —  "  Inquietum  est  cor 
nostrum  donee  requiescat  in  te." 


154  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

"  My  heart  is  pained  ;  nor  can  it  be 
At  rest  till  it  finds  rest  in  Thee." 

On  one  occasion,  while  yet  a  child,  when  sudden 
illness  threatened  his  life,  he  expressed  a  desire  to 
be  baptized.  The  necessary  arrangements  were 
made ;  but  the  danger  passed,  and  his  mother 
deferred  the  salutary  rite,  thinking,  he  says,  "  the 
defilements  of  sin  would,  after  that  washing,  bring 
greater  and  more  perilous  guilt."  This  too  sub- 
jective view  of  baptism  he  condemns. 

*'  Why  does  it  still  echo  in  our  ears  on  all  sides  :  '  Let 
him  alone  —  let  him  do  as  he  will;  for  he  is  not  yet 
baptized '  1  But  in  the  matter  of  bodily  health  no  one 
says,  Let  him  continue  to  be  wounded,  for  he  is  not  yet 
healed.  How  much  better,  then,  I  had  been  healed  at 
once." 

At  school,  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Madaura, 
he  distinguished  himself  by  his  proficiency.  His 
childish  impatience  of  mental  labor  had  already 
begun  to  yield  to  the  rising  visions  and  dawning 
promise  of  the  intellectual  world.  He  returned 
to  Tagaste,  and  remained  a  year  in  his  father's 
house,  preparatory  to  entering  the  university  at 
Carthage.  It  was  his  sixteenth  year,  —  equivalent 
to  the  twentieth  of  colder  climes.  At  this  early 
period  of  his  life  he  began  to  plunge,  without  re- 
serve, into  sensual  pleasures,  and  suffered  all  the 
billows  of  lust  and  passion  to  go  over  his  soul. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  155 

His  father  died ;  and  with  him  the  means  of 
collegiate  education  would  have  failed,  had  not 
the  liberality  of  a  friend  of  the  family  supplied 
the  defect.  He  went  to  Carthage,  —  the  chief 
university  of  Africa,  —  and  there  devoted  himself, 
with  all  tlie  ardor  which  a  passionate  thirst  for 
knowledge  could  inspire  in  such  a  nature,  to  va- 
rious branches  of  letters  and  science ;  above  all, 
to  the  study  of  rhetoric. 

The  high  schools  of  learning  are  seldom  schools 
of  morality.  It  is  oftener  folly  than  wisdom 
which  gives  the  tone  to  society  where  young 
men  are  thrown  together,  without  the  restraint 
of  their  natural  guardians,  and  away  from  the  in- 
fluence of  home.  The  ancient  universities  seem 
not  to  have  differed  in  this  respect  from  those 
of  modern  time.  Life  at  Carthage  was  the  same 
thing  as  life  at  Heidelberg,  or  Halle,  or  Oxford, 
or  other  academic  cities  of  modern  Europe,  not  to 
speak  of  institutions  nearer  home.  Augustine,  with, 
whom  love  of  pleasure  was  second  only  to  love  of 
knowledge,  was  not  likely  to  mend  his  manners 
among  the  turbulent  youths  assembled  there. 

The  vicious  indulgences  commenced  at  Tagaste 
were  continued  on  a  larger  scale,  with  no  other 
check  than  the  intellectual  life  which  now  de- 
veloped itself  with  ever-increasing  intensity.  He 
became    a    member    of    the    noisiest    of    college 


156  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

clubs,  —  one  of  those  associations  which  universi- 
ties often  develop,  under  one  or  another  name,  — 
a  club  which  rejoiced  in  the  name  of  "  The  De- 
structives." Its  character  is  sufficiently  indicated 
by  that  appellation.  Augustine  joined  these  riot- 
ers more  for  the  sake  of  popularity  and  the 
dashing  renown  which,  in  such  communities,  at- 
taches to  such  a  life,  than  for  any  sincere  enjoy- 
ment they  afforded  him.  His  better  soul  recoiled 
from  their  orgies  and  the  graceless  associates 
with  whom  they  connected  him.  He  appears  to 
have  freed  himself  soon,  entirely  or  in  part,  from 
this  sordid  communion. 

As  a  refuge  from  coarser  diversion,  he  frequented 
the  theatre,  where  the  enjoyment,  if  equally  empty, 
was  more  sedate.  In  after  life  he  criticises  this 
passion  for  theatrical  amusement  in  that  half-quer- 
ulous, half-argumentative  tone  which  characterizes 
so  much  of  the  "  Confessions." 

"  Stage-plays  also  carried  me  away,  full  of  images  of 
my  miseries  and  of  fuel  to  my  fire.  Why  is  it  that 
man  desires  to  be  made  sad,  beholding  doleful  and  tragic 
things,  which  yet  he  himself  would  by  no  means  suffer  ? 
...  I,  miserable,  then,  loved  to  grieve,  and  sought  out 
what  to  grieve  at ;  and  that  acting  best  pleased  me  and 
attracted  me  most  veliemently  which  drew  tears  from 
me.  What  wonder  that,  a  lost  sheep  straying  from  thy 
flock,  and  impatient  of  thy  keeping,  I  became  infected 
with  disease  1 " 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  157 

It  was  during  his  residence  at  Carthage  that 
Augustine  connected  himself  with  the  sect  of  the 
Manicheans,  —  a  flourishing  heresy  of  early  Chris- 
tendom, and  one  which  then  divided  with  the 
Arians  the  contempt  and  abhorrence  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  For  even  at  that  early  period  the 
Catholic  Church  was  a  powerful  and  compact  body 
amid  the  formations  of  the  Christian  world.  For 
a  century  past  it  had  been  shaping  its  doctrine, 
defining  its  position,  and  eliminating  all  that  would 
not  conform  to  its  tests.  The  moment  Christianity 
began  to  cool,  like  the  igneous  vapor  of  which 
it  is  supposed  that  the  worlds  were  formed,  it 
began  to  part  and  divide.  The  several  fragments 
formed  themselves  into  separate  bodies,  or  isms, 
and  the  principal  fragment  called  itself  catholic, 
apostolic,  and  assumed  peculiar  and  divine  author- 
ity. Not  to  be  a  Catholic,  in  the  judgment  of 
this  Church,  was  not  to  be  a  Christian.  To  be 
out  of  the  pale  of  that  organization  was  to  be  out 
of  the  fold  of  Christ.  When,  therefore,  the  good 
Monica  learned  that  her  son  had  joined  the  ranks 
of  a  sect,  she  mourned  over  him  with  a  sorrow 
far  exceeding  anything  she  had  hitherto  suffered 
on  his  account.  All  his  previous  aberrations  and 
excesses  seemed  to  her  trivial  compared  with  this 
act  of  revolt,  as  she  deemed  it,  against  the  author- 
ity of  the  Church.     She  argued  —  not  unreasonably 


158  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

from  her  point  of  view  —  that  heresy  was  worse 
than  irreligion ;  that  the  soul  of  her  child  was 
more  imperiled,  his  chance  of  salvation  more  seri- 
ously impaired,  by  false  doctrine  than  by  unbelief. 
So  many  an  orthodox  mother  in  these  days  would 
rather  her  child  should  be  without  faith  and  with- 
out any  tincture  of  religious  life,  and  confess  no 
Christ  and  know  no  God,  than  adopt  the  views 
of  another  sect.  And  if  Christianity  were  a  sys- 
tem of  dogmas  instead  of  a  dispensation  of  grace 
and  truth ;  if  salvation  were  the  product  of  opin- 
ion, and  the  form  of  faith  more  essential  than 
the  fact  of  faith,  —  then,  certainly,  a  state  of  indif- 
ference and  unbelief  would  be  preferable  to  a 
Christian  confession  without  the  pale  of  ortho- 
doxy, because  more  receptive  ;  as  a  vacuum  is 
more  receptive  than  a  solid,  and  a  fallow  field 
a  better  condition  for  the  planter  than  a  forest. 
The  mothers  are  right  from  their  point  of  view. 
Their  error  lies  in  connecting  salvation  with  opin- 
ion, and  in  limiting  the  grace  of  God  to  certain 
confessions.  Yet,  even  here,  in  its  very  exclu- 
siveness,  the  early  Church  seems  to  have  been 
guided  by  divine  instinct,  and  followed  uncon- 
sciously the  leading  of  that  Spirit  whose  organ 
it  was,  and  whose  foolishness  is  wiser  than  human 
wisdom.  The  student  of  history  must  see  that 
Christianity,  —  i.  <?.,  the   principle   of  divine  life 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  159 

introduced  into  the  world  by  Jesus  Christ,  —  could 
not  have  survived  the  agony  of  time,  the  storm 
and  rack  which  followed,  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Roman  Empire ;  could  never  have  descended 
to  us;  that  it  must  have  been  dissipated,  if  not 
extinguished,  in  the  flood  of  Gothic  migrations, — 
had  it  not  been  committed  to  a  compact,  vig- 
orous body,  able  to  resist  and  retain.  What 
the  Church  then  wanted  was  strength  —  organic 
strength ;  and  that  it  could  not  have  without 
exclusiveness.  Although  in  the  formation  of  it 
many  foreign  elements,  as  I  have  said,  were 
embodied,  it  had  need  to  define  itself  sharply 
against  the  unlimited,  and  unconditional  influx  of 
ideas  and  beliefs  from  without,  in  order  to  pre- 
serve its  identity  and  to  perfect  its  strength.  It 
had  to  be  exclusive  to  maintain  its  own.  It  could 
not  be  liberal  without  being  loose,  and  in  constant 
danger  of  dissolution.  A  strong  body  must  have 
a  sharp  and  rigorous  outline.  That  which  does 
not  withstand,  says  Coleridge,  cannot  stand. 

The  Manichees  professed  to  be  Christians.  But 
with  this  profession  they  incorporated  a  system  of 
philosophy  derived  from  Manes  or  Mani,  a  Persian 
philosopher  of  the  third  century,  who  claimed 
to  be  the  Paraclete,  or  "  Comforter "  promised 
by  Christ  to  his  disciples.  It  would  lead  us  too 
far   from  our  theme  to   attempt   so  much  as   an 


160  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

outline  of  that  philosophy.  Its  distinguishing 
feature,  characteristic  of  Persian  thought,  was 
dualism.  That  is,  in  addition  to  a  self -existent, 
eternal  Good,  —  the  God  of  the  Christians,  —  it 
maintained  a  self-existent,  eternal  Evil.  This 
Evil  is  embodied  in  matter,  identical  with  it ;  but 
still  an  active  agent,  a  Prince  of  Darkness,  for- 
ever warring  against  the  Good.  The  Manichees 
carried  this  dualism  into  human  nature.  They 
held  that  man  has  two  souls,  —  a  good  and  an 
evil ;  the  one  the  offspring  of  God,  the  other 
the  child  of  the  Devil.  The  system,  in  short,  is 
the  Magian  or  Zoroastrian  doctrine,  modified  by 
Christian  ideas.  Its  details  are  curious,  combin- 
ing much  that  is  significant  and  much  that  is 
sublime,  with  puerile  vagaries,  grotesque  conceits, 
and  intolerable  platitudes.  If  we  separate  what 
is  purely  theological  in  it  from  tlie  ontological 
and  anthropological  fantasies  in  which  it  is  im- 
bedded, we  shall  find  it  perhaps  as  near  to  the 
mark  of  gospel  truth  as  Augustinian  Christian- 
ity. Its  moral  code  was  rigorous  to  a  fault ;  so 
rigorous  that  only  a  portion  of  those  who  received 
the  doctrine  of  Manes  were  able  to  comply  with 
it.  Accordingly,  there  were  two  classes  of  Mani- 
cheans,  —  the  "  Auditors,"  to  whom  greater  liberty 
was  allowed  in  practice  than  the  canon  allowed 
in  theory ;   and  the   "  Elect,"   who   constituted   a 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  161 

higher  grade,  and  were  bound  to  a  stricter  life. 
The  Latter  were  required  to  mortify  the  flesh  in 
all  directions.  They  ate  no  animal  food,  and  drank 
no  wine,  subsisted  on  herbs  and  fruits,  and  often 
fasted  entirely.  They  lived  celibate,  in  rigor- 
ous sexual  seclusion.  They  held  no  property,  but 
renounced  whatever  they  possessed  on  entering 
the  order,  and,  wedded  to  lifelong  poverty,  were 
supported  entirely  by  eleemosynary  aid.  The  life 
even  of  the  Auditors  was  in  many  respects  more 
strict  than  that  of  the  Catholics :  and  so  far 
as  the  negative  part  of  morality  is  concerned, 
appeared  to  advantage  beside  that  of  the  Church. 
The  radical  vice  of  the  system  was  its  ration- 
alistic character.  Whatever  of  Christian  truth 
there  was  in  it  was  so  plighted  and  confused 
with  philosophic  speculation  as  to  lose  entirely 
the  evangelic  simplicity  and  authority  which  dis- 
tinguish the  original  Word  from  all  the  fabrics 
of  vain  curiosity.  It  was  not  a  religion,  but  a 
speculation ;  it  put  theory  before  gospel,  and 
Manes  before  Christ. 

Monica  grieved,  even  to  anger.  She  could  tol- 
erate the  libertine,  but  not  the  heretic.  A  bishop 
whom  she  consulted  on  the  subject,  once  himself 
a  Manichean,  reassured  her.  She  would  have  him 
argue  the  matter  with  Aurelius.  But  the  wise 
man  knew  better  than  to  grant  her  request.  He 
11 


162  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

knew  how  little  is  gained  in  such  cases  by  dis- 
putation. He  bade  her  take  heart,  and  employ 
no  means  but  prayer  for  his  conversion.  The 
boy  would  come  right  at  last.  It  was  impossible 
that  the  son  of  so  many  tears  should  be  eter- 
nally lost.  She  was  further  consoled  by  a  vision, 
which  assured  her  that  where  she  was  there  her 
son  should  be  also.  Augustine,  to  whom  she  re- 
lated the  circumstance,  would  have  put  a  differ- 
ent interpretation  upon  it :  Monica  was  to  turn 
Manichean.  She  indignantly  repelled  the  suppo- 
sition. ''  The  vision  said  not  that  I  should  be 
where  you  are,  but  that  you  should  be  where  I 
am."  He  was  more  impressed  with  the  answer 
than  with  the  vision. 

Our  saint  had  now  completed  his  academic 
course,  in  which  one  book,  especially,  had  stirred 
his  soul  with  profound  effect.  It  was  a  work  of 
Cicero,  now  lost,  entitled  "  Hortensius,"  — a  trea- 
tise of  philosophy,  commending  not  this  or  that 
school,  but  the  search  after  absolute  wisdom. 

The  soul  of  Augustine  was  regenerated  by  it. 
He  refers  to  it  in  the  "  Confessions  "  as  the  date 
of  a  new  consciousness,  —  a  marked  and  decisive 
moment  in  his  mental  being.  "This  book  altered 
my  affections,  and  turned  my  prayers  to  th}^- 
self,  0  Lord,  and  made  me  have  other  purposes 
and   desires.      Every   vain   hope   at   once   became 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  163 

worthless  to  me,  and  I  longed,  with  an  incredi- 
bly burning  desire,  for  an  immortality  of  wis- 
dom, and  began  now  to  arise,  that  I  might  retm^n 
unto  thee."  One  thing  he  missed  in  the  splendid 
Roman  —  the  name  and  idea  of  Christ.  "  That 
name,"  says  his  French  biographer,  "  the  son  of 
Monica  had  imbibed  from  his  mother's  breast; 
and  across  all  the  tempests  of  his  young  heart 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  had  remained,  a  divine 
perfume."  ^ 

He  embraced  the  profession  of  rhetor^  or  pub- 
lic speaker  and  teacher  of  the  arts  of  speech.  The 
choice  was  characteristic.  It  was  that  profession 
of  all  others  which  yielded  the  readiest  rewards 
to  ambition.  It  afforded  scope  for  literary  cul- 
ture, yet  brought  him  continually  before  the  pub- 
lic, and  linked  him  with  the  living  world.  No 
profession,  however,  is  more  dangerous-  to  the 
souls  of  them  that  practise  it  than  that  of  public 
speaker, —  a  profession  whose  success  depends  on 
dexterity  of  tongue,  on  the  turn  of  a  phrase  ;  on 
plausibility,  not  wisdom,  nor  intellectual  or  moral 
worth.  It  endangers  that  which  is  most  vital  in 
man,  and  the  loss  of  which  is  most  fatal,  —  his 
sincerity.  It  is  not  a  favorable  indication  of  the 
state  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  that  time  that  the 
public  speaker  had  grown  into  such  repute  ;  that 

1  Poujoulat. 


164  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  calling  of  the  rhetor  had  become  so  generally 
popular ;  that  the  grave,  old,  taciturn  Roman 
had  grown  loquacious.  ''  Given,"  says  Carlyle, 
"a  general  insincerity  of  mind  for  several  gen- 
erations, you  will  certainly  find  the  talker  estab- 
lished in  the  place  of  honor,  and  the  doer  hidden 
in  the  obscure  crowd.  All  men  devoutly  pro- 
strate, worshipping  the  eloquent  talker,  and  no 
man  knows  what  a  scandalous  idol  he  is ;  out  of 
whom,  in  the  mildest  manner,  like  comfortable, 
natural  rest,  comes  mere  asphyxia  and  death  ever- 
lasting. Probably  there  is  not  in  nature  a  more 
distracted  phantasm  than  your  commonplace,  elo- 
quent speaker." 

Augustine  himself,  in  after  years,  appears  to 
have  taken  this  view  of  his  profession,  which  he 
satirizes  with  an  irony  as  bitter  as  Carlyle  him- 
self could  wish:  "In  those  days  I  taught  rhetoric, 
and,  overcome  by  cupidity,  made  sale  of  loquacity. 
.  .  .  And  Thou,  Lord,  from  afar  perceivcdst  me 
stumbling  in  that  slippery  course,  amid  much 
smoke,  emitting  some  sparks  of  faithfulness." 

As  rhetor,  then,  behold  him  established  in  his 
native  city  of  Tagaste,  and  occupying  with  good 
success  that  slippery  path ;  not  a  mere  talker, 
indeed,  but  a  teacher  of  talk. 

In  his  twenty-second  year,  young,  lively,  enthu- 
siastic, at  once  a  glowing  idealist,  a  dreamer  of 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  165 

romantic  dreams,  and  a  gay,  gallant,  polished  man 
of  the  world,  he  was  just  the  person  to  attract 
pupils,  and  bind  them  to  him  with  passionate 
devotion. 

And  he  did  attract  them.  His  lifelong  connec- 
tion with  his  friend  and  pupil  Alypius  began 
at  the  lecture-room  in  Tagaste. 

The  school  flourislied,  the  rhetor  prospered;  but 
a  great  affliction  now  befell  him,  and  embittered 
his  brief  success.  A  beloved  friend,  a  companion 
of  his  boyhood,  bound  to  him  by  affinity  of  tastes 
and  pursuits,  by  early  association  and  all  that 
nourishes  youthful  friendship,  was  struck  down 
by  death.  In  the  insensibility  of  a  fever  they 
had  administered  to  him  the  rite  of  baptism. 
Augustine,  who  had  been  converting  him  to  Mani- 
cheism,  made  sport  of  the  ceremony.  But  his 
friend,  in  a  lucid  interval,  with  an  independence 
he  had  never  before  exhibited,  bade  him  forbear. 
It  was  no  Manichean  speculation  that  could  com- 
fort him  in  that  extreme.  And  so  he  died  in  the 
simple  faith  of  the  Church.  The  soul  of  Augus- 
tine was  dissolved  in  boundless  sorrow.  "  My 
heart,"  he  says,  "  was  utterly  darkened,  and  what- 
ever I  beheld  was  death.  My  birthplace  was  a 
torment  to  me,  and  my  father's  house  a  strange 
unhappiness."  He  lived  to  repent  this  inordinate 
grief;   and   in  one  of  the  most  eloquent  passages 


166  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  his  autobiography  condemns  the  love  which 
cleaves  to  the  finite  with  such  mad  devotion.  No 
English  version  can  do  justice  to  the  terseness 
of  the  original,  —  a  terseness  of  which  only  the 
Latin  is  capable.  "  Happy  he  who  loves  thee, 
and  the  friend  in  thee,  and  the  enemy  because 
of  thee.  He  alone  loses  no  dear  one,  to  whom 
all  are  dear  in  Him  who  is  never  lost.  And  who 
is  he  but  our  God,  —  the  God  that  made  heaven 
and  earth,  and  who  fills  them  by  the  act  of  crea- 
tion. Thee  no  one  loses  but  he  who  dismisses 
thee.  And  he  who  dismisses  thee,  whither  can 
he  go,  or  whither  flee,  but  from  thee  complacent 
to  thee  irate  ?  " 

The  city  was  a  desert  in  which  this  void  had 
opened  and  where  this  shadow  lay.  He  removed 
to  Carthage,  where  a  wider  and  richer  field  was 
open  to  his  ambition.  He  had  already  attained 
to  public  honors',  had  contended  for  literary  prizes, 
and  received  "  agonistic  garlands  "  from  "  procon- 
sular hands."  He  now,  in  his  twenty-sixth  or 
twenty-seventh  year,  composed  a  work  on  the 
Beautiful  and  the  Fit,  —  "I  think  two  or  three 
books.  Thou  knowest  how  many,  0  Lord,  for 
it  is  gone  from  me,  I  know  not  how."  His  life 
at  this  period  was  devoted  to  study  —  indefati- 
gable in  its  assiduity  and  wide  in  its  range,  but 
probably  more  discursive  than  profound.     Yet  he 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  167 

boasts,  with  a  good  deal  of  complacency,  to  God, 
of  having  mastered  Aristotle's  predicaments  with- 
out teacher  or  guide.  Meanwhile  his  own  predica- 
ments, what  with  the  ill-manners  of  Carthaginian 
youths  and  tiie  unquenchable  fire  in  his  bosom, 
were  getting  daily  more  intolerable,  and  finally 
drove  him  from  Carthage  across  the  sea  to  the 
fore-appointed  goal  of  his  spiritual  quest. 

There  was  one  name  which  must,  in  those  days, 
have  filled  the  provincial  mind  with  wonder  and 
longing  above  all  others.  Rome,  even  then,  with 
Byzantium  for  the  capital  of  the  East,  and  Milan 
the  seat  of  the  Augusti  of  the  West,  was  still  a 
synonyme  for  empire.  It  was  still  a  name  which 
outweighed  the  world,  comprising  more  and 'greater 
memories  than  any  secular  name  that  was  named 
of  men.  It  was  still  the  urbs  Kar  e^o'^^rjv.  Who- 
ever uttered  it  enunciated  in  one  word  a  thousand 
years  of  power  and  glory.  Our  rhetor  was  not 
insensible  to  these  attractions.  The  Avorld's  me- 
tropolis drew  him  to  new  and  nobler  triumphs  ; 
and,  revolving  his  future  course,  like  Saint  Paul, 
he  concluded  within  himself :  "  1  must  also  see 
Rome."  The  difficulty  was  in  escaping  from 
Monica,  who  vehemently  opposed  his  design ;  but, 
if  he  would  go,  insisted  on  accompanying  him. 
She  feared  to  trust  him  away  in  the  Avide,  wicked, 
Manichean  world,  where  "  grievous  wolves  "  lay  in 


168  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

wait  to  devour  him.  She  had  followed  him  to  the 
sea-shore,  suspecting  his  intent.  But  he  persuaded 
her  to  pass  the  time  in  a  neighboring  chapel,  while 
he  waited  the  embarkation  of  a  friend  who  was 
to  sail  with  the  midnight  breeze.  She  spent  the 
night  in  prayer  that  he  might  stay ;  and  all  the 
while  his  vessel  was  cleaving  the  seas  on  the  ^ings 
of  the  southwest.  And  when  morning  dawned 
there  lay  some  leagues  of  Mediterranean  waves  be- 
tween mother  and  son :  he  to  her  a  speck  on  the 
blue  waste  ;  she  to  him  a  cloud  in  the  horizon. 
It  was  deftly,  but  not  well  done.  "  And  I  lied 
to  my  mother  (and  such  a  mother !  ),  and  escaped. 
For  this,  also,  thou  hast  mercifully  forgiven  me, 
preserving  me,  thus  full  of  execrable  defilements, 
from  the  sea,  for  the  waters  of  thy  grace." 

His  stay  in  Rome  was  brief,  and  embittered  by 
sickness  of  body  as  well  as  the  old  unrest.  His 
professional  success  was  marred  by  the  graceless 
habit  which  the  Roman  students  had,  of  quitting 
the  classes  before  the  end  of  the  course,  leaving  tlie 
tuition-fees  unpaid.  "  These  also,"  he  says  pathe- 
tically, "'  my  heart  hated."  When,  therefore,  the 
prefect  of  the  city  was  applied  to  by  the  author- 
ities of  Milan  to  send  them  a  rhetorician  at  the 
public  cost,  Augustine  petitioned  for  the  post,  and 
obtained  it  through  the  influence  of  Manichean 
friends.     To   Milan  he   went,  unconscious   of   the 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  169 

good  which  awaited  him  there,  in  that  city  of  his 
new  birth,  —  the  native  city  of  his  inner-man, — 
where,  out  of  the  body  of  death,  the  soul  was  to 
lift  itself  into  nevniess  of  life.  His  mother  now 
joined  him,  having  braved  all  the  perils  of  the  way, 
that  she  might,  if  possible,  interpose  her  influence 
between  him  and  perils  more  dreaded  than  those 
of  land  or  sea. 

His  state  of  mind  at  this  period  was  one  of  pre- 
dominant scepticism.  He  despaired  of  finding  the 
absolute  truth.  His  faith  in  Manicheism  had  long 
been  shaken  by  the  inability  of  its  teachers,  and 
especially  of  the  celebrated  Faustus,  whom  he  had 
encountered  at  Carthage,  to  resolve  the  objections 
which  had  arisen  in  his  mind  respecting  some 
parts  of  the  system.  Bat  no  new  doctrine  had  yet 
replaced  that  system  in  his  belief.  Platonism, — 
or  rather  the  modification  of  it  by  the  New  Acad- 
emy which  had  had  such  influence  on  the  Greek 
Fathers,  and  through  them  on  the  early  Church  — 
took  possession  of  his  mind,  and  kindled  there,  as 
he  says,  an  incredible  glow  {incredibile  incendimyi)  ; 
but  without  satisfying  his  heart,  which  craved, 
unknown  to  himself,  a  religion  instead  of  philos- 
ophy, and  authority  instead  of  speculation.  He 
was  just  in  the  state  to  receive  the  impression  of  a 
nature  more  powerful  than  any  he  had  yet  been 
subjected  to. 


170  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

The  bishopric  of  MihT^n  was  at  this  time  vested 
in  a  man  whose  praise  was  in  all  the  churches  of 
the  West,  —  a  man  who  combined  in  beautiful 
harmony  the  spiritual  potentate  with  the  tender 
shepherd ;  the  practical  counsellor,  worldly-wise, 
with  the  holy  man  of  God  ;  the  liturgical  artist 
with  the  faithful  preacher,  —  a  man  who  could 
rebuke  emperors  and  comfort  poor  old  women  as 
well,  —  the  fancy-type  of  the  true  ecclesiastic. 
What  August-dried  fields  are  to  September  show- 
ers, the  soul  of  Augustine  was  to  the  preaching  of 
Ambrosius,  whose  very  name  seemed  a  happy  pre- 
sage of  immortal  food.  The  first  effect  of  this 
prelate's  discourses  was  to  open  to  him  the  Scrip- 
tures. On  the  Old  Testament  especially,  which 
to  Augustine  had  always  been  a  sealed  book,  it 
poured  a  flood  of  light,  interpreting  typically  those 
passages  which  had  been  most  repulsive  to  his 
taste,  —  with  a  liberal  disregard,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, of  the  literal  import.  He  began  the  study 
of  Paul's  Epistles  ;  which,  though  never  entirely 
comprehended,  filled  his  whole  soul,  displacing 
the  sages  of  Alexandria.  His  mind  was  now  set 
in  the  direction  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But  a 
great  moral  gulf  remained  to  be  overcome,  and 
a  moral  revolution  to  be  accomplished,  before 
he  could  attain  to  reconciliation  with  God  in 
Christ.     He  was  still  far  estranged  from  God  by 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  171 

abhorrent  desires  and  averted  life.  He  was  practi- 
cally an  eudeemonist,  given  to  sensual  pleasures  to 
such  a  degree  that  only,  he  confesses,  the  fear  of 
a  judgment  to  come,  implanted  in  his  childhood, 
restrained  liim  from  the  vilest  excesses.  The  Epi- 
curean philosophy,  as  a  practical  system,  was  the 
one  he  would  prefer,  could  he  only  ignore  a  future 
retribution. 

The  slave  of  libidinous  passion,  honestly  desir- 
ing to  shake  off  that  yoke,  he  turned  his  thoughts 
to  marriage  as  a  way  to  escape.  His  mother,  who 
also  saw  in  wedlock  a  refuge  from  lawless  indul- 
gence, seconded  his  views  on  this  subject  with 
great  eagerness,  and  joyfully  took  upon  herself  the 
task  of  discovering  an  eligible  match.  The  under- 
taking proved  less  easy  than  her  alacrity  had 
figured  it.  The  fastidious  exigence  of  Augustine 
had  embarrassed  it  with  hard  conditions.  Monica 
thought  him,  as  we  say,  "  too  particular."  He 
denied  the  charge.  He  did  not  expect  perfection, 
but  he  never  could  think  of  marrying  a  woman 
who  did  not  at  least  possess  these  four  qualifi- 
cations :  1st,  she  must  be  beautiful ;  2d,  good- 
tempered  ;  3d,  cultivated  ;  4th,  she  must  have 
property.  These  were  his  four  "  predicaments," 
as  rigorously  determined  as  Aristotle's  ten.  The 
number  of  females  in  whom  these  four  conditions 
could   be   united,  was   limited.      But   after   much 


172  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

seeking,  and  inquiring,  and  advertising,  to  the 
effect  that  "  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  recently  from 
Carthage,  aged  thirty,  intending  to  marry,  would 
receive  proposals,"  a  damsel  was  found  whom 
mother  and  son  agreed  in  thinking  an  unexcep- 
tionable party,  but  whose  friends,  considering  her 
extreme  youth,  exacted  a  space  of  two  3'ears  before 
they  would  give  her  in  marriage.  Meanwhile  he  dis- 
missed the  mother  of  his  son  Adcodatus,  between 
whom  and  himself  an  unritual  connection  had 
subsisted  for  twelve  or  thirteen  years,  and  who  had 
accompanied  him  from  Carthage.  The  unhappy 
woman,  who  loved  him  with  devoted  affection, 
was  sent  back,  like  Hagar,  to  Africa,  only,  as  it 
shamefully  turned  out,  to  make  room  for  another 
similar  connection  pending  the  intended  marriage. 
The  blackest  spot  in  Augustine's  history  is  this 
passage.  But  the  time  was  at  hand  when  the 
grace  of  God  was  to  triumph  over  lust  and  passion 
in  that  sin-bound  soul. 

We  come  to  the  story  of  Augustine's  conversion. 
From  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Milan  many  con- 
senting influences  had  tended  to  that  result.  The 
way  was  prepared.  His  moral  sense  had  been 
roused  ;  his  conscience  convicted  of  sin ;  his  heart 
desired  the  needed  change  ;  he  longed  to  be  delivered 
from  the  bondage  of  corruption.  To  will  was 
present;  but  how  to  perform  that  which  is  good 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  173 

was  not  yet  found.  "  For  as  the  needle  of  a  com- 
pass," says  Taylor,  "when  it  is  directed  to  its 
beloved  star,  at  the  first  addresses  wavers  on  either 
side,  and  seems  indifferent  in  its  courtship  of  the 
rising  or  declining  sun,  and  when  it  seems  first 
determined  to  the  north,  stands  awhile  trembling, 
as  if  it  suffered  inconvenience  in  the  fruition  of  its 
desires,  and  stands  not  still  in  full  enjoyment  till 
after,  first  a  great  variety  of  motions,  and  then  an 
undisturbed  posture,  —  so  is  the  piety  and  so  is  the 
conversion  of  a  man  wrought  by  degrees  and  sev- 
eral steps  of  imperfection.  At  first  our  choices  are 
wavering,  convinced  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  yet 
not  persuaded,  and  then  persuaded,  but  not  re- 
solved, and  then  resolved,  but  deferring  to  begin." 
It  needed  an  impulse  from  without  to  polarize 
the  wavering  will,  and  precipitate  the  new  creation. 
That  impulse  came,  as  it  often  does,  in  the  carri- 
age of  a  trifling  occasion.  He  was  sitting  in  deep 
dejection  with  his  friend  Alypius,  whose  interior 
state  resembled  his  own.  A  countryman  of  theirs, 
Pontitianus,  an  officer  of  rank  in  the  army  and  a 
zealous  Christian,  entered  the  room,  and  was  sur- 
prised at  seeing  on  the  table,  instead  of  some 
classic  or  Manichean  author,  a  copy  of  Paul's  Epis- 
tles. Pie  began  a  religious  conversation,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  told  of  Anthony,  the  eremite, 
who  had  followed  literally  the  command  of  Christ 


174  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  the  rich  young  man,  to  sell  all  that  he  had  and 
give  to  the  poor,  and  then  to  follow  him  ;  also  of 
two  friends  of  his,  on  the  eve  of  marriage,  who, 
reading  the  story  of  that  sacrifice,  had  renounced 
their  betrothed  and  given  themselves  to   God. 

Augustine  received  the  narration  as  an  admoni- 
tion to  himself;  and  when  their  friend  was  de- 
parted, he  exclaimed  to  Alypius :  "  What  suffer 
we  ?  What  is  this  ?  Do  you  hear  ?  The  unlearned 
arise,  and  take  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  force  ; 
and  we,  witli  our  heartless  learning,  behold  we 
wallow  in  flesh  and  blood  !  Are  we  ashamed  to 
follow,  because  they  preceded,  and  not  ashamed 
7iot  to  follow  at  least  ?  "  He  seized  the  volume  of 
Paul's  Epistles  and  rushed  into  the  garden  adjoin- 
ing the  house.  "  I  raved  in  my  spirit,"  he  says, 
"  indignant,  with  stormiest  indignation,  that  I  did 
not  enter  into  thy  will  and  covenant,  0  my  God, 
though  all  my  bones  cried  aloud  to  me  to  enter. 
But  thither  goes  no  one  with  chariots,  or  with 
ships,  or  with  feet.  ...  To  go  thither,  and  to 
arrive  there,  is  nothing  else  but  to  will  to  go  ; 
but  to  will  it  bravely  and  wholly.  .  .  .  And  thou, 
Lord,  didst  stand  by  me  in  my  hidden  parts,  with 
severe  pity  and  duplicated  lashes  of  fear  and 
shame,  that  I  might  not  relapse,  and  the  feeble 
and  slender  cord  be  broken  that  yet  remained, 
but  recover  strength  and  more  strongly  bind  me. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  175 

And  I  said  to  myself,  Do  it  now  !  Do  it  now ! 
And  while  I  spoke  I  all  but  entered  into  thy  will. 
I  almost  did  it,  and  did  it  not.  And  still  I  strug- 
gled. And  there  wanted  but  little,  and  I  was  there  ; 
and  a  little  less.  Now,  now,  I  could  touch  —  I 
could  lay  hold.  And  I  was  not  there,  and  I  did 
not  touch,  nor  lay  hold ;  hesitating  to  die  unto 
death  and  to  live  unto  life."  So  raged  the  conflict 
in  Augustine's  breast.  At  one  time  his  pleasant 
vices  plucked  him  by  his  "  fleshly  garment,"  and 
asked  him  if  he  meant  to  abandon  them  forever ; 
if  after  that  moment  he  would  never  more  know 
pleasure.  Then  again  the  "  chaste  dignity  of  con- 
tinence "  beckoned,  and  showed  him  multitudes  of 
youths  and  maidens  and  people  of  every  age  who 
had  lived  a  pure  and  virgin  life.  That  continence, 
"  not  sterile,  but  fruitful  mother  of  joy,  —  chil- 
dren begotten  of  thee,  Lord,  her  spouse."  "Why 
standest  thou  on  thyself,"  she  said,  "  and  findest 
no  footing  ?  Throw  thyself  upon  him,  and  fear 
not ;  he  will  not  stand  from  under,  and  let  thee 
fall."  And  still  he  hesitated.  He  turned  his  eye 
inward,  and  shuddered  as  he  looked,  through  the 
rifts  of  passion,  down  into  the  unsunned  depths  of 
his  breast  —  into  hideous  gulfs  of  bottomless  guile 
—  into  weltering  abysses  of  insatiate  lust,  and 
saw  the  hells  opened  —  hell  underneath  hell  —  in 
his   darkling,   selfish    heart.      Then,   by   contrast, 


176  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

came  glimpses  of  the  Christian's  heaven.  He  saw, 
in  the  jewelled  splendor  of  its  mystic  foundations, 
the  golden  city,  and  the  nations  of  them  that  are 
saved,  walking  in  the  light  of  it,  and  the  river  of 
life  ever  welling.  He  heard  the  Spirit  and  the 
Bride  say  "-  Come  ! "  and  he  felt  that  it  needed  but 
an  effort  of  the  will  to  obey  the  call,  to  come  and 
take  up  his  everlasting  rest.  And  when  he  found 
himself  incapable  of  that  effort,  still  cleaving  to 
the  flesh,  a  tempest  of  despair  broke  loose  in  his 
soul,  and  gushed  in  fierce  torrents  from  his  eyes. 
He  cast  himself  on  the  ground  in  the  utter  aban- 
donment of  helpless  woe.  It  was  the  death-agony 
of  the  carnal  will,  dying  to  self  and  sin.  And 
he  lay  as  one  dead,  his  only  last  thought : 
"  Wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  will  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death?" 

"Tolle.lege!  Tolle,  lege!''  "Take  and  read!" 
sang  the  voice  of  a  child  at  play  in  some  neighbor- 
ing house.  Like  a  call  from  heaven,  it  struck  the 
ear  of  the  prostrate  penitent.  "  Take  and  read  !  " 
Yes  !  he  will  read.  In  the  Scripture  help  may  be 
found.  For  what  else  was  Scripture  given,  but  to 
succor  such  as  he  ?  He  unrolled  the  codex  which 
lay  by  his  side,  —  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  in  the  Latin 
version,  —  and  resolved  that  the  words  on  which 
his  eye  first  lighted  should  decide  his  purpose  and 
determine  his  destiny.     They  were   these :    "  Put 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  Ill 

ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  no  provi- 
sion for  the  flesh  in  your  desires."  ^  He  found  the 
passage  providentially  adapted  to  his  condition. 
Witli  awe  he  perceived  that  God  had  spoken  to  his 
soul.  And  he,  that  was  in  the  grave,  heard  his 
voice,  and  came  forth  unto  the  resurrection  of  life. 
The  old  man  had  dropped  from  him  like  grave- 
clothes  ;  corruptible  had  put  on  incorruption.  He 
stood  there  a  new  creation  —  his  purpose  irrevoca- 
bly fixed  —  his  will  subdued  by  victorious  grace ; 
and  now,  through  grace,  victorious.  The  needle 
was  turned  to  its  beloved  star,  and  suffered  no 
"  inconvenience  in  the  fruition  of  its  desires." 
The  moral  nature,  self-determined  with  elective 
polarity,  pointed  Godward,  its  axis  parallel  with 
that  of  the  moral  creation  —  the  law  of  liberty. 

His  purpose  of  marriage  was  abandoned;  he 
resolved  to  live  celibate  :  for  so  the  ascetic  spirit 
of  the  time  required  that  all  should  live  who  would 
follow  Christ  to  the  uttermost  with  practical  obe- 
dience. He  renounced  his  profession  and  with- 
drew from  public  life,  intending  to  devote  himself 
to  theological  studies  and  the  service  of  Christian 
truth.  He  was  now  thirty-two  years  of  age  ;  and, 
if  spared  to  complete  the  normal  term  of  human 
existence,  might  look  forward  to  many  years  of 
profitable  labor. 

1  According  to  the  Vulgate. 
12 


178  *     MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Seldom  has  a  man  at  that  period  of  life  had 
such  a  future  unrolled  before  him.  Never  did 
man  more  nobly  redeem  the  promise  of  his  future 
with  his  life  and  works. 

The  space  I  have  occupied  with  the  forming- 
period  in  Augustine's  history  precludes  a  full  exhi- 
bition of  his  ecclesiastial,  episcopal  life,  and  leaA^es 
but  little  room  for  a  critical  estimate  of  the  author, 
the  theologian,  and  the  man.  To  complete  the 
biographical  outline,  the  following  data  must  suf- 
fice. The  interval  between  his  conversion  and  his 
baptism,  spent  partly  at  Cassiciacum,  —  the  coun- 
try-seat of  a  friend,  —  and  partly  at  Milan,  was 
given  to  philosophic  and  literary  labors,  and  pro- 
duced the  treatise  "  Contra  Academicos,"  directed 
against  the  sceptics  of  the  Neoplatonic  school ; 
with  several  other  works,  of  minor  importance, 
on  grammar,  rhetoric,  mathematics,  music,  and 
immortality,  —  of  which  the  last  two  only  were 
completed  and  have  survived.  If  these  writings 
possess  but  little  philosophical  value,  they  show 
at  least  the  prodigious  intellectual  uberty  of  the 
man.  It  seems  to  have  been  his  desire,  before 
entering  the  Church,  to  wind  up  his  accounts  with 
secular  philosophy,  and  to  gather  and  preserve  the 
fruits  of  his  past  intellectual  life.  At  the  Easter 
celebration  in  387  he  received  from  Ambrose  the 
waters  of   baptism,  and  was  made  a   member   of 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  179 

the  body  of  Christ.  He  soon  after  departed,  with 
his  mother  and  son,  for  Africa.  At  Ostia,  on  the 
way,  Monica  died.  "  For  one  thing  only  have  I 
wished  to  live,"  said  slie  in  her  last  moments,  "  that 
I  might  see  thee  a  Catholic  Cliristian.  God  hath 
blessed  me  beyond  measure  in  this.  Why  should 
I  yet  linger?"  With  this  event  terminates  the 
historical  part  of  the  "  Confessions,"  published  in 
the  year  400.  For  what  else  we  know  of  Augustine 
we  are  chiefly  indebted  to  his  friend  Possidius. 

After  the  deatli  of  his  mother  he  spent  some 
months  in  Rome,  where  he  wrote  two  works 
against  the  Manicheans.  In  the  autumn  of  388 
he  returned  to  Africa,  to  his  native  Tagaste, 
sold  the  property  inherited  from  his  father,  and 
gave  the  proceeds  to  the  poor ;  reserving  only  so 
much  as  might  suffice  for  the  bare  necessities  of 
life.  Here  he  lived  three  years  with  his  friends 
Alypius  and  Evodius,  acquired  great  reputation 
for  his  sanctity  and  wisdom,  and  Avrote  various 
works,  —  polemic,  dogmatic,  philosophic.  In  392 
he  was  called  to  the  office  of  presbyter  at  Hippo 
Regius,  the  modern  Bona;  and  in  395,  in  his 
forty-first  or  forty-second  year,  on  the  death  of 
Valerius,  the  former  incumbent,  he  was  appointed 
bishop  of  that  see,  —  an  office  which  he  held  until 
his  death,  displaying  in  it  all  the  executive  ability 
required  of  Christian  bishops  in  an  age  when  the 


180  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

bishop,  like  Melchizedec,  united,  in  one  office, 
monarch  and  priest,  and  when  the  destinies  of 
society  and  the  future  of  humanity  were  com- 
mitted chiefly  to  the  shepherd-kings  of  young- 
Christendom.  With  the  dignity  and  power  of  a 
sovereign,  he  lived  the  life  almost  of  a  pauper, 
so  simple  his  habits,  so  abstemious  his  vegetable 
fare.  He  was  virtually  bishop,  not  only  of  Hippo, 
but  of  Africa,  —  in  fact,  of  the  entire  West ;  the 
leading  mind  of  the  Latin  Churcli.  His  activity 
was  directed  in  part  to  the  inner,  organic  polity 
and  well-being  of  the  Church,  and  partly  to  literary 
labors  ;  most  of  all  to  the  refutation  and  extermi- 
nation of  the  heretics  who  threatened  the  integrity 
of  its  doctrine, —  Manicheans,  Pelagians,  Donatists. 
Toward  the  latter  especially  he  exhibited  impla- 
cable severity  ;  seconding,  if  not  originating,  the 
fierce  persecutions  of  that  sect  by  the  Emperor 
Honorius,  and  thereby  precipitating  the  calamity 
which,  soon  after,  overwhelmed  the  African  Church, 
and  finally  extirpated  Christianity  from  the  very 
field  which  he  himself  had  tilled  with  such  suc- 
cess. In  428  came  Genseric  with  his  Vandals,  — 
summoned  and  aided  by  the  vengeful  Donatists, 
—  took  possession  of  the  land,  and  laid  waste  the 
churches  of  the  Catholic  faith.     Says  Gibbon  :  — 

"  The  conquest  of  Africa  was  facilitated  by  the  active 
zeal  or  the  secret  favor  of  a  domestic  faction.     The  wanton 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  181 

outrages  against  the  churches  and  the  clergy  of  which 
the  Vandals  were  accused,  may  be  fairly  imputed  to  the 
fanaticism  of  their  allies  ;  and  the  intolerant  spirit  whicli 
disgraced  the  triumph  of  Christianity  contributed  to  the 
loss  of  the  most  important  province  of  the  West." 

Hippo  Eegiiis  was  besieged ;  but  before  it  fell, 
the  fleshly  citadel  of  its  bishop  was  stormed  and 
carried  by  the  arch-Vandal  who  spares  neither 
Donatist  nor  Catholic,  heretic  nor  saint.  After 
a  ten  days'  illness  spent  in  prayer  and  penance 
—  with  the  penitential  psalms  affixed,  for  con- 
venience, to  the  wall  by  his  bedside  —  on  the 
28th  of  August,  430,  he  laid  down  the  burden  of 
his  seventy-five  years,  and  passed  victorious  on 
from  life  to  life.  His  vacant  bishopric  had  no  suc- 
cessor. Africa  fell  into  the  hands  of  Genseric. 
That  cherished  jewel  of  the  Roman  Empire,  "  spe- 
ciositas  totius  terras  florentis,"  sparkled  a  while 
in  the  diadem  of  the  Vandal.  A  century  passed ; 
Belisarius  seized  and  set  it  in  the  crown  of  Jus- 
tinian. Another  century,  and  Omar  mounted  it 
in  the  ring  of  the  caliphate.  The  Greek  sup- 
planted the  Vandal,  the  Saracen  supplanted  the 
Greek ;  Africa  was  blotted  out  from  the  map  of 
Christendom.  But  Christian  Africa  had  produced 
one  fruit,  whose  fragrance  escaped  the  desolations 
of  the  sword,  and  whose  seed  has  survived  the 
dissolutions   of  time.     In   Moorish   Bona,  to   this 


182  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

day,  the  memory  of  Augustine  endures,  as  that  of 
the  Gheber  saint  who  taught  the  religion  of  the 
Son  of  Mary  before  the  birth  of  Mohammed.  In 
many  a  New  England  Sunday-school,  to  this  day, 
the  unconscious  catechumen  receives,  from  his 
Orthodox  Catechism,  the  hereditary  burden  of 
Augustinian   theology. 

As  an  author  and  a  man  of  letters,  Saint  Augus- 
tine occupies  a  place  which  belongs  to  no  other 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church.  Less  learned  than 
Justin  Martyr  or  Gregory  of  Nazianzen  among 
the  Greeks,  than  Jerome  among  the  Latins  ;  less 
profound  than  Origen  ;  less  forcible  than  Chrys- 
ostom,  and  not  more  eloquent  than  Lactantius, 
—  he  is  yet  the  only  one  of  them  all  who  has 
acquired  an  extra-ecclesiastical  reputation,  the 
only  one  who  is  anything  more  than  a  name  to  the 
common  run  of  educated  laity,  who  possesses  a 
literary  fame  independent  of  Church  authority  or 
calendar  renown.  As  an  author  he  is  charac- 
terized, first  of  all,  by  immense  fecundity.  Set- 
ting aside  the  quality  of  his  writings,  in  the  mere 
matter  of  uberty  he  ranks  among  the  wonders  in 
that  kind,  and  may  be  classed  with  Lope  de 
Yega,  Voltaire,  G.  P.  R.  James,  and  other  mon- 
sters of  the  pen.  One  shudders  at  the  sight  of 
those  ponderous  six  folios,  which  yet  do  not  con- 
tain  all  his  writings.     Some   have  been  recently 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  183 

added  to  the  number  by  Cardinal  Mai  from  the 
unpublished  manuscripts  of  the  Vatican.^  Others, 
it  is  said,  remain  to  l)e  added.  Possidius  speaks 
of  a  thousand  and  thirty  essays ;  but  confesses  that 
all  were  not  known  to  him.  It  would  seem  to 
be  the  work  of  a  life  only  to  read  what  that 
enterprising  pen  has  traced.  In  fact  the  read- 
ing might  prove  perhaps  the  more  difficult  task 
of  the  two. 

Bohringer  divides  these  productions  into  nine 
classes,  —  philosophic,  apologetic,  polemic,  dogma- 
tic, exegetic,  ascetic,  homiletic,  autobiographic,  and 
the  Retractations. 

For  the  general  reader,  the  '^  Confessions,"  the 
"  Meditations  and  Soliloquies,"  and  the  "  City  of 
God,"  are  the  most  attractive,  and  perhaps  the 
most  important,  as  revealing  —  especially  the  two 
former  —  the  interior  life  of  the  man.  The  "  City 
of  God  "  belongs  to  the  class  apologetic.  This  most 
celebrated  of  Augustine's  works  deserves  particu- 
lar notice.  Its  aim  was  to  vindicate  the  Christian 
Church  against  the  accusations  of  pagan  conserva- 
tives, who  ascribed  the  calamities  wliich  had  come 
upon  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  dereliction  of  the 
ancient  faith.  It  was  early  in  the  fifth  century 
that  Alaric  swept  the  land  with  his  devastating 
hosts.     The  city  of  Rome  had  felt  the  sharpness 

1  Schaff. 


184  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  the  Gothic  sword,  and  suffered  such  spoiling  as 
never  before  since  the  Gallic  invasion  in  the  time 
of  Camillus.  The  heathen  mind  imputed  these  dis- 
asters to  vacant  temples  and  forbidden  rites,  with 
which  Christian  emperors  and  a  recreant  people 
had  offended  the  tutelary  numina  of  ancient  Rome, 
Saint  Augustine  rebuts  the  charge,  commemorates 
the  evils  experienced  by  the  Romans  before  the 
introduction  of  Christianity,  exposes  the  vices  of 
the  old  religion  ;  then  traces  the  two  great  poli- 
tics or  lines  of  civilization  which,  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  world,  have  proceeded  in  parallel 
developments,  —  the  worldly  and  the  spiritual ;  the 
terrene  city  and  the  city  of  God.  The  latter  has 
ultimated  in  the  Christian  Church.  The  Church  of 
Christ  is  the  City  of  God,  including  all  the  right- 
eous, from  Abel  downward.  This  city,  at  the  expi- 
ration of  the  sixth  day  of  human  history,  then  in 
progress,  on  the  seventh  shall  put  on  the  heavenly 
state ;  the  dead  being  raised,  the  living  transfi- 
gured, and  all  made  partakers  of  one  felicity. 
''  This  seventh  day,"  he  says,  "  will  be  our  Sab- 
bath, whose  end  will  be  no  evening,  but  a  Lord's 
day,  as  it  were  an  eighth  day  everlasting.  Then 
we  shall  rest,  and  we  shall  see  ;  we  shall  see,  and 
we  shall  love  ;  we  shall  love,  and  we  sliall  praise. 
This  is  what  will  be  in  the  end  Avithout  end.  For 
what  other  end  to  us  than  to  reach  the  kingdom  of 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  185 

which  there  is  no  end  ?  "  In  connection  with  this 
design,  the  work  embodies  much  valuable  historic 
and  philosophic  knowledge ;  in  fact,  is  a  kind  of 
compendium  of  philosophy  and  history,  as  well 
as  of  Christian  doctrine.  The  author  concludes 
with  this  morally  and  rhetorically  characteristic 
period  :  — 

"  I  seem  to  myself,  with  the  help  of  God,  to  have  paid 
the  debt  of  this  great  work.  May  they  pardon  me  to 
whom  it  is  too  much,  and  they  to  whom  it  is  too  little. 
And  let  them  to  whom  it  is  sufficient,  in  their  congratu- 
lations tijank  not  me,  but  God  with  me.     Amen." 

As  a  stylist,  Augustine  is  chiefly  distinguished 
by  impetuous  fervor.  Not  the  fervor  of  profound 
thought,  but  the  fervor  of  lively  passion,  —  the 
flashing  of  that  fiery  nature  which  procured  for 
him,  in  the  old  pictorial  representations,  the  sym- 
bol of  the  flaming  heart.  This  fascinating  warmth 
conveys  at  first  an  impression,  or  awakens  an 
expectation,  of  eloquence,  which  further  acquain- 
tance does  not  fully  sustain,  and  which  is  fre- 
quently marred  by  an  over-curious,  artificial  diction, 
abounding  in  puns,  assonances,  antitheses,  and  all 
sorts  of  tricks  and  quibbles,  which  provoke,  at  last, 
the  impatient  criticism  of  Lorenzo  :  "  Oh,  dear  dis- 
cretion !  how  his  words  are  suited."  The  language 
of  devotion  in  the  "Meditations  "  is  often  striking, 
and  even  sublime  ;    but  often,  too,  it  degenerates 


186  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

into  puerile  conceits  and  endless  repetition  of  ver- 
bal paradoxes.  "  Thou,  Lord,  fillest  heaven  and 
earth,  bearing  all  things  without  burden,  filling 
all  things  without  inclusion  ;  ever  acting,  yet  ever 
at  rest ;  gathering,  though  Thou  needest  nothing  ; 
seeking,  though  Thou  wantcst  nothing  ;  loving 
without  heat ;  jealous,  although  secure ;  repent- 
ing, and  not  grieving ;  angry,  and  yet  tranquil." 
And  so  on,  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  A  great 
reader,  he  was  yet  singularly  deficient  in  solid 
learning.  His  acquaintance  with  Greek  was  so 
slight  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  reason 
to  doubt  if  he  even  read  the  New  Testament  in  the 
original.  Acute  and  penetrating,  seldom  profound, 
or  profound  only  in  sentiment,  not  in  thought ; 
as  a  controversialist  nimble  and  adroit,  a  skilful 
wrangler,  not  a  powerful  logician,  —  he  is  often 
unfair  toward  his  opponents,  especially  the  Mani- 
chees,  whose  philosophy,  notwithstanding  he  was 
tinctured  to  the  last  with  its  leading  idea,  he  never 
fully  fathomed.  When  hard  pushed  he  dodges 
the  point  at  issue,  extricates  himself  with  a 
sophism,  or  evaporates  in  a  generality.  But  no 
weak  point  in  his  adversary's  case  escapes  him, 
and  no  chance  of  a  home-thrust  is  ever  suffered  to 
go  by.  When  Manes  exhorts  to  repentance,  he 
triumphantly  asks  the  Manichees  which  soul  it  is 
that  repents,  the   good,  or  the  bad  ?    If  the   bad. 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  187 

then  it  is  not  bad,  seeing  that  it  can  repent ;  if  the 
good,  what  need  of  repentance  ?  Fancy  and  under- 
standing, wit  and  reflection,  were  more  developed 
in  him  than  the  higher  faculties  of  imagination 
and  reason.  He  saw  nothing  in  the  dry  light 
of  pure  intellect,  but  everything  steeped  in  pas- 
sion. As  a  writer,  on  the  whole,  he  is  subtle, 
ingenious,  captivating,  rather  than  satisfactory  or 
strong. 

Augustine's  significance  in  dogmatic  theology  is 
so  momentous,  his  agency  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tian dogma  so  immense,  that  a  separate  essay 
would  be  needed  to  exhibit  him  in  this  relation. 
One  or  two  critical  suggestions  are  all  that  our 
limits  will  allow.  He  was  resolutely  and  rigor- 
ously Catholic.  Christianity  with  Jiim  was,  once 
for  all,  identified  with  the  Catholic  Clinrch.  The 
idea  of  a  possible  Christianity  outside  of  that 
communion  he  would  not  tolerate.  Every  attempt 
in  that  kind  he  attacked  with  implacable  zeal. 
Notwithstanding  the  tenderness  professed  for  the 
erring  in  that  well-known  passage  quoted  by 
Locke,  he  warred  against  heretics,  and  especially 
Donatists,  with  furious  hostility  ;  and,  unhappilj^, 
lent  the  sanction  of  his  great  name  to  swell  the 
black  list  of  Christian  persecutors.  Starting  with 
the  false  assumption  that  truth  is  something  objec- 
tive, to  be  appropriated  with  the  understanding  or 


188  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

conquered  by  the  will,  and  failing  to  find  what  he 
sought  in  Manes  or  in  Plato,  the  idea  that  God 
must  have  instituted  some  infallible  method,  or 
repository  of  truth,  first  turned  his  attention  to 
the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  once  received  into  its 
bosom,  so  entirely  did  he  surrender  himself  to  its 
dictates,  that  he  expressly  declares  he  would  not 
believe  the  gospel  itself,  except  the  authority  of  the 
Church  impelled  him  to  do  so.  It  is  worthy  of 
note,  that  the  Catholic  Church,  while  honoring  him 
with  a  place  in  her  calendar,  has  not  rewarded 
his  devotion  to  her  doctrinal  authority  with  a  like 
devotion  to  his.  Doctrinally,  he  stands  in  closer 
relations  with  the  Protestant  Church  than  with  the 
Catholic,  whose  prevailing  tendency  has  been  Pela- 
gian, and  therefore  anti-Augustinian.  His  views 
of  man,  of  sin,  of  grace  and  predestination,  ever 
coldly  received  and  faintly  acknowledged  by  his 
own  communion,  did  not  blossom  into  popular 
favor  until  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century 
revived  the  African  theology. 

In  spite  of  his  war  against  the  Manichees,  he 
remained  to  the  last  unconsciously,  but  virtually 
and  essentially,  Manichean  in  his  theory  of  hu- 
man nature.  This  opinion,  which  I  had  formed 
on  a  partial  acquaintance,  I  find  corroborated 
by  others  more  deeply  versed  than  myself  in  his 
works,  though    stoutly  denied  by    his   biographer 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  189 

Poujoulat,  and  denied  by  himself  in  his  contro- 
versy with  Julian,  who  had  charged  it  upon  him. 
His  anti-Manicheism  had  led  him  to  deny  the  sub- 
stantiality and  self-existence  of  evil,  which  he  justly 
defines  as  privation,  not  substance.  But  his  doc- 
trine of  human  nature,  converting  Paul's  rhetoric 
into  logic,  substantizes  sin,  and  thus  reproduces  in 
altered  form  the  Manichean  theory  of  two  natures 
and  souls.  What  the  good  and  evil  principle  are 
in  the  doctrine  of  Manes,  that  nature  and  grace 
are  in  the  doctrine  of  Augustine ;  nature  in  man, 
antecedent  to  conversion,  being  wholly  and  only 
evil. 

The  Eastern  Church  had  developed  the  doctrine 
of  triune  divinity  ;  the  Western,  in  the  person  of 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  developed  the  doctrine  of 
humanity.  What  Athanasius  is  to  the  Christology 
of  the  Church,  that  Augustine  is  to  its  anthropol- 
ogy. That  system  of  views  which,  in  substance, 
was  reproduced  and  rearranged  by  Calvin  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  is  known  to  us  familiarly 
as  Calvinism,  is  the  doctrine  represented  by  our 
saint,  its  earliest  systematic  expositor,  exhibited 
most  fully  in  the  controversy  with  Pelagius,  where 
we  see  it  contrasted  with  the  opposite  system.  In 
this  controversy,  the  imputation  of  Adam's  sin  and 
Christ's  sinlessness,  predestination,  human  inabil- 
ity, total  depravity,  the  unnaturalness  of  goodness, 


190  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

and  the  consequent  absence  of  it  in  all  but  Catholic 
Christians,  and  the  consequent  damnation  of  all 
unbaptized,  whether  infants  or  adults,  are  as- 
serted with  undoubting  consequence.  It  is  not  my 
purpose  to  discuss  these  views,  nor  is  this  the 
place  for  such  discussion.  I  will  only  say  that  the 
system  of  Augustine  appears  to  me  tainted  with 
two  essential  defects.  The  first  is  its  fatal  Mani- 
cheism.  It  recognizes  but  two  agents,  but  two  in- 
telligences, in  the  universe,  —  God  and  the  Devil. 
Man  disappears,  human  nature  is  annihilated. 
Humanity  is  not  a  middle  term  between  those 
two,  but  only  a  medium  for  the  manifestation  of 
God  or  the  Devil.  Man  unbaptized  and  uncon- 
verted is  nature,  ^.  e.,  evil ;  man  converted  and 
baptized  is  a  manifestation  of  grace,  ^.  e.,  God. 
My  other  objection  to  it  is  that  it  makes  all  good- 
ness in  man  exotic,  not  native,  and  thereby  de- 
stroys the  obligation  of  goodness  and  impairs  our 
interest  in  it.  Goodness  is  not  the  legitimate  pro- 
duct of  human  nature,  the  fruit  which  it  yields, 
or  should  yield,  under  proper  cultivation  by  divine 
aid,  but  something  which  God,  by  an  arbitrary  act, 
affixes  to  it,  displays  in  it,  or  performs  upon  it, 
—  not  natural,  but  preternatural,  or  even  contra- 
natural.  It  is  something  which  man  has  no  call  to 
cultivate,  because  no  power  to  produce. 

If   only  the  divine   plant,  once  imported,  could 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  191 

be  naturalized  and  propagate  itself  in  the  soil  of 
this  world  ;  if  only  the  tree,  once  grafted,  would 
continue  to  produce  the  heavenly  fruit.  But  no ; 
every  ratable  stem  in  the  garden  of  humanity  — 
every  tree  whicli  the  Lord  accepts  —  is  an  exotic, 
a  stranger  on  exhibition,  whose  very  roots,  if  you 
examine  them,  are  set  in  a  tub  of  foreign  mould. 
Every  instance  of  goodness  which  the  Augustinian 
can  allow  to  be  such  is  an  apple  of  Paradise  hung 
by  a  thread  of  grace  on  a  tree  of  Sodom,  and  liung 
there,  not  to  fructify  and  bless  to  future  genera- 
tions the  surrounding  waste,  but  to  make  it  b}'  con- 
trast more  accursed.  Grant  man  as  depraved  as 
you  will,  short  of  absolute  incapacity  for  good, 
inherent  in  his  nature  and  vitiating  and  transmu- 
ting the  fundamental  constitution  of  liim,  so  that 
humanity  in  its  constitutive,  radical  type,  has  come 
to  be  congenerous  with  hell ;  but  grant  at  least  a 
germ,  a  capacity,  of  good.  Leave  us,  at  least,  the 
idea  of  man  as  a  kind  distinct  from  that  of  devil. 
Place  the  action  of  the  Spirit  within  the  plant,  and 
not  without  it.  Make  the  act  of  grace  to  consist 
in  fertilizing  the  soil,  in  tilling,  showering,  graft- 
ing (if  you  please)  the  tree ;  not  in  eradicating,  not 
in  supplanting,  not  in  transferring  an  abnormal 
fruit  of  grace  to  a  graceless  stem.  If  goodness 
and  man"  belong  to  each  other  by  destination  and 
design,  there  must  be  some  normal  relation,  some 


192  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

natural  affinity,  between  them.  Then  the  natural 
man  and  the  spiritual  are  not  distinct  in  kind, 
but  different  epochs  of  one  being,  different  stages 
of  one  life.  All  which  is  spiritual  in  man  is  natu 
ral  in  its  root,  and  all  which  is  truly  natural  in 
man  is  capable  of  spiritual  fruit. 

It  is  easy  to  interpret,  from  his  own  experience, 
the  views  of  a  man  in  whom  so  vast  a  change  had 
been  wrought  by  grace,  and  who  might  seem  to 
himself  —  contrasting  the  present  with  the  past  — 
to  have  become,  in  his  new  career,  the  medium  of 
a  spirit  not  his  own.  But  let  us  confess  that,  with 
all  his  eminent  graces  and  gifts,  there  was  not  in 
Augustine  that  calm  intuition,  that  patient  delibe- 
ration and  cautious  judgment,  which  alone  can  give 
weight  to  authority,  or  certify  soundness  of  opinion 
in  matters  of  faith.  The  value  of  a  man's  conclu- 
sions on  one  point  is  rightly  estimated  by  the  prac- 
tical judgment,  or  want  of  judgment,  which  he 
manifests  on  others ;  and  who,  at  this  day,  can 
receive  with  implicit  reliance,  or  receive  without 
grave  deductions,  the  opinions  of  one  who  solemnly 
testifies  to  numerous  miracles,  and  among  them 
three  resurrections  from  the  dead,  performed  within 
his  knowledge  by  contact  with  the  tomb  of  a  saint  ? 

If  I  have  seemed  in  these  strictures  less  than 
just  to  the  honored  Father  whose  portraiture  I 
have   essayed,   it   is   not,   I   trust,   from   want    of 


SAINT  AUGUSTINE.  193 

abilit}^  or  will  to  discern  and  acknowledge  his  qual- 
ity and  claims ;  it  is  not  from  any  want  of  rever- 
ence for  the  saint  or  delight  in  the  man.  Precious 
to  me,  as  to  any,  that  great  memory.  I  admire 
the  mighty  energy  which  bore  the  eartlily  accidents 
and  name  of  Augustine.  I  honor  the  laborious 
and  unwearied  devotion  to  Christ  and  t\\Q  Church 
which  knew  no  pause  and  asked  no  reward  but  the 
rest  that  remaincth  for  the  people  of  God.  I  re- 
vere the  steadfast  virtue  which,  by  grace  abound- 
ing, could  trample  at  once  on  lusts  long  indulged, 
and  walk  unswerving,  in  the  teeth  of  such  passions, 
the  elected  path  of  ascetic  abnegation.  To  me,  as 
to  all  Christendom  forevermore,  the  name  of  Au- 
gustine stands  for  a  spiritual  fact  of  holiest  import. 
Had  nothing  survived  of  him  but  the  story  of  his 
life,  that  alone  would  be  a  heritage  of  price  to  the 
world.  The  real  import  of  the  man,  stripped 
of  all  accidents,  lies  in  his  conversion.  A  conver- 
sion more  satisfactory  and  complete,  with  such  an- 
tecedents, on  such  a  level  of  intellectual  life,  the 
annals  of  religion  do  not  record.  Here  is  a  man 
who  was  dead  and  lived  again ;  who,  past  the 
bloom  and  pliancy  of  life,  but  still  in  the  heat  of 
its  passions  and  fiercest  .carnal  demands,  having 
lived  for  thirty  years  to  the  flesh,  a  selfish  volup- 
tuary, —  on  a  day,  in  an  hour,  turned  right  about 
in  the  path  he  was  treading ;  and  ever  after,  with 

13 


194  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

his  back  to  the  world  and  his  face  toward  God, 
for  forty  long  years,  made  every  day  of  his  life  the 
round  of  a  ladder  by  which  he  climbed  into  glory. 

The  life  which  contains  that  fact,  is  it  not  a 
benediction  to  all  generations  ?  The  Church  which 
inscribes  that  life  on  her  annals,  shall  she  not  re- 
cord it  with  the  prefix  of  saint  ?  But  what  then  ? 
Because  of  the  saint  shall  we  not  see  the  limita- 
tions of  the  man  ?  Or  worse,  because  of  the  limi- 
tations of  the  man  shall  we  refuse  to  acknowledge 
the  saint  ?  A  saint  he  was,  if  ever  mortal  deserved 
that  name ;  but,  for  all  that,  a  very  imperfect 
man.  Humanity  is  more  than  any  saint,  than  all 
saints.  It  includes  them  all,  it  transcends  them 
all.  Humanity's  calendar  is  never  full ;  and  the 
holiest  in  it  serve  us  best  when  they  point  to 
something  higher  than  themselves. 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM   Vfi^{.EIBNIZ.     195 

I- 


:'ii 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ. 

[From  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1858.] 

nPHE  philosophic  import  of  this  illustrious  name, 
after  suffering  temporary  eclipse  from  the 
Critical  Philosophy,  with  its  swift  succession  of 
transcendental  dynasties,  has  within  the  last  half 
century  emerged  into  clear  and  respectful  recog- 
nition, if  not  into  broad  and  effulgent  repute.  In 
divers  quarters  the  attention  of  scholars  has  re- 
verted to  the  splendid  optimist  whose  adventur- 
ous intellect  left  nothing  unexplored,  and  almost 
nothing  unexplained. 

Voltaire  pronounced  him  "  le  savant  le  plus  uni- 
versel  de  I'Europe ;  "  but  characterized  his  metaphy- 
sical labors  with  the  somewhat  equivocal  compliment 
of  "  metaphysicien  assez  delie  pour  vouloir  recon- 
cilier  la  theologie  avec  la  metaphysique."  ^ 

Germany,  with  all  her  wealth  of  erudite  celebri- 
ties, has  produced  no  other  who  fulfils  so  com- 
pletely the  type  of  the  Gelehrte,  —  a  type  which 
differs  from  that  of  the  savant  and  from  that  of  the 

1  "  On  sait  que  Voltaire  n'ainiait  pas  Leibniz.     J'imagine  que 
c'est  le  chre'tien  qu'il  de'testait  en  lui." — Ch.  Waddington. 


196  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

scholar,  but  includes  them  both.  Feuerbach  calls 
him  "  the  personified  thirst  for  Knowledge  ;  "  Fred- 
eric the  Great  pronounced  him  an  "Academy  of 
Sciences ; "  and  Fontenelle  said  of  him  that  "  he 
saw  the  end  of  things,  or  that  they  had  no  end." 
It  was  an  age  of  intellectual  adventure  into  which 
Leibniz  was  born,  —  fit  sequel  and  heir  to  the  age 
of  maritime  adventure  which  preceded  it.  We 
please  ourselves  with  fancied  analogies  between 
the  two  epochs  and  the  nature  of  their  discoveries. 
In  the  latter  movement,  as  in  the  former,  Italy 
took  the  lead.  The  martyr  Giordano  Bruno  was 
the  brave  Columbus  of  modern  thought,  —  the  first 
who  broke  loose  from  the  trammels  of  mediaeval 
ecclesiastical  tradition,  and  reported  a  new  world 
beyond  the  watery  waste  of  scholasticism.  Cam- 
panella  may  represent  the  Yespucci  of  the  new 
enterprise  ;  Lord  Bacon  its  Sebastian  Cabot,  —  the 
"  Novum  Organum "  being  the  Newfoundland  of 
modern  experimental  science.  Descartes  was  the 
Cortes,  or  shall  we  rather  say  the  Ponce  de  Leon, 
of  scientific  discovery,  who,  failing  to  find  what  he 
sought,  —  the  Principle  of  Life  (the  Fountain  of 
Eternal  Youth),  —  yet  found  enough  to  render  his 
name  immortal  and  to  make  mankind  his  debtor. 
Spinoza  is  the  spiritual  ^lagalhaens,  who,  emerging 
from  the  straits  of  Judaism,  beheld 

"  Another  ocean's  breast  immense,  unknown." 


GOTTFRIED    WILIIELM   VCN  LEIBNIZ.     197 
Of  modern  thinkers  he  was 

"  the  first 
That  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea." 

He  discovered  the  Pacific  of  philosophy,  —  that 
theory  of  the  sole  Divine  Substance,  the  All-One, 
which  Goethe  in  early  life  found  so  pacifying  to 
his  troubled  spirit,  and  which,  vague  and  barren 
as  it  proves  on  nearer  acquaintance,  induces  at 
first,  above  all  other  systems,  a  sense  of  repose  in 
illimitable  vastness  and  immutable  necessity. 

But  the  Yasco  de  Gama  of  his  day  was  Leibniz. 
His  triumphant  optimism  rounded  the  Cape  of 
theological  Good  Hope.  He  gave  the  chief  impulse 
to  modern  intellectual  commerce.  Full  freighted, 
as  he  was,  with  Western  thought,  he  revived  the 
^  forgotten  interest  in  the  Old  and  Eastern  World, 
and  brought  the  ends  of  the  earth  together.  Cir- 
cumnavigator of  the  realms  of  mind,  wherever  he 
touched  he  appeared  as  discoverer,  as  conqueror, 
as  lawgiver.  In  mathematics  he  discovered  or 
invented  the  Differential  Calculus,  —  the  logic  of 
transcendental  analysis,  the  infallible  method  of 
astronomy,  without  which  it  could  never  have  com- 
passed the  large  conclusions  of  the  ''  Mccanique 
Celeste."  In  his  ''  Protoga^a,"  published  in  1693, 
he  laid  the  foundation  of  the  science  of  Geology. 
From  his  observations   as   Superintendent  of   the 


198  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Harz  Mines,  and  those  which  he  made  in  his  sub- 
sequent travels  through  Austria  and  Italy ;  from 
an  examination  of  the  layers,  in  different  localities, 
of  the  earth's  crust,  —  he  deduced  the  first  theory, 
in  the  geological  sense,  which  has  ever  been  pro- 
pounded, of  the  earth's  formation.  Orthodox  Luth- 
eran as  he  was,  he  braved  the  theological  prejudices 
which  then,  even  more  than  now,  affronted  scien- 
tific inquiry  in  that  direction.  ^'  First  among 
men,"  says  Flourens,  "  he  demonstrated  the  two 
agencies  Avhich  successively  have  formed  and  re- 
formed the  globe,  —  fire  and  water."  In  the  region 
of  metaphysical  inquiry  he  propounded  a  new  and 
original  theory  of  Substance,  and  gave  to  phil- 
osophy the  Monad,  the  Law  of  Continuity,  the 
Pre-established  Harmony,  and  the  Best  Possible 
World. 

Born  at  Leipsic  in  1646, —  left  fatherless  at  the 
age  of  six  years,  —  by  the  care  of  a  pious  mother 
and  competent  guardians,  young  Leibniz  enjoyed 
such  means  of  education  as  Germany  afforded  at 
that  time,  but  declares  himself,  for  the  most  part, 
self-taught.  ^  So  genius  must  always  be,  for  want 
of  any  external  stimulus  equal  to  its  own  impulse. 

1  "Duo  mihi  profuere  mirifice  (quae  tamen  alioqui  ambigua, 
et  pluribus  noxia  esse  solent),  primum  quod  fere  essem  oi»To5i5a/c- 
Tos,  alterum  quod  quaererem  nova  in  unaquaque  scientia." 
—  Leibnit.  :  Opera  Philosoph.     (Erdraann,  p.  162.) 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ,     199 

No  normal  training  could  keep  pace  with  his  abnor- 
mal growth.  No  school  discipline  could  supply 
the  fuel  necessary  to  feed  the  consuming  fire  of 
that  ravenous  intellect.  Grammars,  manuals,  com- 
pends,  —  all  the  apparatus  of  the  classes,  —  were 
only  oil  to  its  flame.  The  master  of  the  Nicolai- 
Schule  in  Leipsic,  his  first  instructor,  was  a  steady 
practitioner  of  the  martinet  order.  The  pupils 
were  ranged  in  classes  corresponding  to  their  civil 
ages  —  their  studies  graduated  according  to  the 
baptismal  register.  It  was  not  a  question  of  fac- 
ulty or  proficiency,  how  a  lad  should  be  classed 
and  what  he  should  read,  but  of  calendar  years. 
As  if  a  shoemaker  should  fit  his  last  to  the  age 
instead  of  the  foot !  Such  an  age,  such  a  study. 
Gottfried  is  a  genius,  and  Hans  is  a  dunce ;  but 
Gottfried  and  Hans  were  both  born  in  1646 :  con- 
sequently, now,  in  1654,  they  are  both  equally  fit 
for  the  Smaller  Catechism.  Leibniz  was  ready  for 
Latin  long  before  the  time  allotted  to  that  study 
in  the  Nicolai-Schule ;  but  the  system  was  inex- 
orable :  all  access  to  books  cut  off  by  rigorous 
proscription.  But  the  thirst  for  knowledge  is 
not  easily  stifled,  and  genius,  like  love,  "  will  find 
out  his  way." 

He  chanced,  in  a  corner  of  the  house,  to  light  on 
an  odd  volume  of  Livy  left  there  by  some  student 
boarder.     What  could  Livy  do  for  a  child  of  eight 


200  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

years,  with  no  previous  knowledge  of  Latin  and 
no  lexicon  to  interpret  between  them  ?  For  most 
children,  nothing.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  would 
have  dreamed  of  serious  grappling  with  such  a 
mystery.  But  the  brave  Patavinian  took  pity  on 
our  little  one,  and  yielded  something  to  childish 
importunity.  The  quaint  old  copy  w^as  garnished, 
according  to  a  fashion  of  the  time,  with  rude  wood- 
cuts, having  explanatory  legends  underneath.  The 
young  philologer  tugged  at  these  until  he  had 
mastered  one  or  two  words.  Then  the  book  was 
thrown  by  in  despair,  as  impracticable  to  further 
investigation.  Then,  after  one  or  two  weeks  had 
elapsed,  for  want  of  other  employment,  it  was 
taken  up  again,  and  a  little  more  progress  made. 
And  so  by  degrees,  in  the  course  of  a  year,  a  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  Latin  had  been  achieved. 
But  when,  in  the  Nicolai  order,  the  time  for  this 
study  arrived,  so  far  from  being  pleased  to  find  his 
instructions  anticipated,  or  welcoming  such  prom- 
ise of  future  greatness ;  so  far  from  rejoicing  in 
his  pupil's  proficiency,  the  pedagogue  chafed  at 
the  insult  offered  to  his  system  by  this  empiric 
antepast.  He  was  like  one  who  suddenly  discovers 
that  he  is  telling  an  old  story  where  he  thought  to 
surprise  with  a  novelty  ;  or  like  one  who  under- 
takes to  fill  a  lamp,  which,  being  (unknown  to 
him)  already  full,  runs  over,  and  his  oil  is  spilled. 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    201 

It  was  "  oleum  perdidit "  in  another  sense  than  the 
scholastic  one.  Complaint  was  made  to  the  guar- 
dians of  the  orphan  Gottfried  of  these  illicit  visits 
to  the  tree  of  knowledge.  Severe  prohibitory  mea- 
sures were  recommended  ;  which,  however,  judicious 
counsel  from  another  quarter  happily  averted. 

At  the  age  of  eleven,  Leibniz  records  tliat  he 
made,  on  one  occasion,  three  hundred  Latin  verses 
without  elision  between  breakfast  and  dinner.  A 
hundred  hexameters,  or  fifty  distichs,  in  a  day,  is 
generally  considered  a  fair  2^ensum  for  a  boy  of 
sixteen  at  a  German   gymnasium. 

At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  produced,  as  an  acad- 
emic exercise,  on  taking  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Philosophy,  his  celebrated  treatise  on  the  Principle 
of  Individuality,  "  Dc  Principio  Individui,"  —  the 
most  extraordinary  performance  ever  achieved  by 
a  youth  of  that  age  ;  remarkable  for  its  erudition, 
especially  its  intimate  knowledge  of  the  writings 
of  the  Schoolmen,  and  equally  remarkable  for  its 
vigorous  grasp  of  thought  and  its  subtle  analysis. 
In  this  essay  Leibniz  discovered  the  bent  of  his 
mind,  and  prefigured  his  future  philosophy,  in  the 
choice  of  his  theme  and  in  his  vivid  appreciation 
and  strenuous  positing  of  the  individual  as  the 
fundamental  principle  of  ontology.  He  takes  No- 
minalistic  ground  in  relation  to  the  old  controversy 
of  Nominalist  and  Realist,  sidinor  with  Abelard  and 


202  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Roscellin-and  Occam,  and  against  St.  Thomas  and 
Dmis  Scotus.  The  principle  of  individuation,  he 
maintains,  is  the  entire  entity  of  the  individual, 
and  not  mere  limitation  of  the  universal,  whether 
by  ''  Existence  "  or  by  "  Hcecceityr  ^  Jolui  and 
Thomas  are  individuals  by  virtue  of  their  inte- 
gral humanity,  and  not  by  fractional  limitation 
of  humanity.  Dobbin  is  an  actual  positive  horse 
(^Entitas  totd).  Not  a  negation,  by  limitation,  of 
universal  equiety  (^Negatio').  Not  an  individuation, 
by  actual  existence,  of  a  non-existent  but  essential 
and  universal  horse  (^Existentia).  Nor  yet  a  horse 
only  by  limitation  of  kind,  —  a  horse  minus  Dick 
and  Bessie  and  the  brown  mare,  etc.  (^Hoecceitas) . 
But  an  individual  horse,  simply  by  virtue  of  his 
equine  nature.  Only  so  far  as  he  is  an  actual  com- 
plete horse  is  he  an  individual  at  all  (^Per  quod 
quid  est,  per  id  unum  numero  est).  His  individu- 
ality is  nothing  superadded  to  his  equiety  ( Unum 
sujyra  ens  nihil  addit  reale).  Neither  is  it  anything 
subtracted  therefrom  (^Negatio  non  j^otest  pi^odu- 
cere  accidentia  individualia') .  In  fine,  there  is  and 
can  be  no  horse  but  actual  individual  horses 
(^Essentia  et  existent ia  non  possunt  separari). 

1  "  Aut  enim  principiura  individuationis  i^oniinr  entitas  tola,  {\) 
aut  non  tota.  Non  totam  aut  negatio  exprimit,  (2)  aut  aliquid 
positivum.  Positivura  aut  pars  physica  est,  essentiara  termin- 
ans,  existentia,  (3)  aut  metaphysica,  speciem  terniinans,  hcecceitas. 
(4)  .  ,  .  Pono  igitur :  omne  individuum  sua  tota  entitate  individ- 
uatur."  —  De  Princ.  Indiv.  3  et  4. 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    203 

This  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Nominalists,  as  it 
was  of  Aristotle  before  them.  It  was  the  doctrine 
of  the  Reformers,  except,  if  we  remember  rightly, 
of  Huss.  The  University  of  Leipsic  was  founded 
upon  it.  It  is  the  current  doctrine  of  the  present 
day,  and  harmonizes  well  with  the  current  Mate- 
rialism. Not  that  Nominalism  in  itself,  and  as 
Leibniz  held  it,  is  necessarily  materialistic,,  but 
Realism  is  essentially  antimaterialistic.  The  Real- 
ists held  with  Plato,  —  but  not  in  his  name,  for 
they,  too,  claimed  to  be  Aristotelian,  and  pre-emi- 
nently so,  —  that  the  ideal  must  precede  the  actual. 
So  far  they  Avere  right.  This  was  their  strong 
point.  Their  error  lay  in  claiming  for  the  ideal  an 
objective  reality,  an  independent  being.  Concep- 
tualism  was  only  another  statement  of  Nominalism, 
or,  at  most,  a  question  of  the  relation  of  language 
to  thought.  It  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  third  issue 
in  this  controversy,  —  a  controversy  in  which  more 
time  was  consumed,  says  John  of  Salisbury,  "  than 
the  C^sars  required  to  make  themselves  masters 
of  the  world,"  and  in  Avhich  the  combatants,  hav- 
ing spent  at  last  their  whole  stock  of  dialectic 
ammunition,  resorted  to  carnal  Aveapons,  pass- 
ing suddenly,  by  a  A^ery  illogical  r,2etabasis,  from 
"  uniA^ersals  "    to   particulars. 

Both  parties  appealed  to  Aristotle.  By  a  singu- 
lar fortune,  a  pagan  philosopher,  introduced   into 


204  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Western  Europe  by  Mohammedans,  became  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  Christian  world.  Aristo- 
tle was  tlie  Scripture  of  the  Middle  Age.  Luther 
found  this  authority  in  his  way,  and  disposed  of  it 
in  short  order,  devoting  Aristotle  without  cere- 
mony to  the  Devil,  as  "  a  damned  mischief-making 
heathen."  But  Leibniz,  whose  large  discourse 
looked  before  as  well  as  after,  reinstated  not  only 
Aristotle,  but  Plato,  and  others  of  the  Greek  philo- 
sophers, in  their  former  repute  :  "  Car  ces  anciens," 
he  said,  "  etaient  plus  solides  qu'on  ne  croit."  He 
was  the  first  to  turn  the  tide  of  popular  opinion  in 
their  favor. 

Not  Avithout  a  struggle  was  he  brought  to  side 
with  the  Nominalists.  Musing,  when  a  boy,  in  the 
Rosenthal,  near  Leipsic,  he  debated  long  with  him- 
self, —  "  Whether  he  would  give  up  the  Substantial 
Forms  of  the  Schoolmen."  Strange  matter  for 
boyish  deliberation  !  Yes,  good  youth,  by  all  means 
give  them  up  !  They  have  had  their  day.  They 
served  to  amuse  the  imprisoned  intellect  of  Chris- 
tendom in  times  of  ecclesiastical  thraldom,  when 
learning  knew  no  other  vocation.  But  the  age 
into  which  you  are  born  has  its  own  problems,  of 
nearer  interest  and  more  commanding  import. 
The  measuring-reed  of  science  is  to  be  laid  to  the 
heavens,  the  solar  system  is  to  be  weighed  in  a 
balance ;  the  age  of  logical  quiddities  has  passed, 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    205 

the  age  of  mathematical  quantities  has  come. 
Give  them  up !  You  will  soon  have  enough  to  do 
to  take  care  of  your  own.  What  with  Dynamics 
and  Infinitesimals,  Pasigraphy  and  Dyadik,  Mo- 
nads and  Majesties,  Concilium  J^gyptiacum  and 
Spanish  Succession  and  Hanoverian  cabals,  there 
will  be  scant  room  in  that  busy  brain  for  Sub- 
stantial Forms.  Let  them  sleep,  dust  to  dust, 
with  the  tomes  of  Duns  Scotus  and  the  bones  of 
Aquinas ! 

The  "  De  Principio  Individui "  was  the  last  trea- 
tise of  any  note  in  the  sense  and  style  of  the  old 
scholastic  philoso]:)hy.  It  was  also  one  of  the  last 
blows  aimed  at  scholasticism,  which,  long  under- 
mined by  the  Saxon  Reformation,  received  its  coup- 
de-grace  a  century  later  from  the  pen  of  an  English 
wit.     Says  the  author  of  "  Martinus  Scriblerus," — 

"  Cornelius  told  Martin  that  a  shoulder  of  mutton  was 
an  individual ;  whicli  Crainbe  denied,  for  he  had  seen  it 
cut  into  commons.  '  That's  true,'  quoth  the  tutor;  'but 
you  never  saw  it  cut  into  shoulders  of  mutton.'  '  If  it 
could  be/  quoth  Crambe,  '  it  would  be  the  loveliest  indi- 
vidual of  the  University.'  When  he  was  told  that  a  sub- 
stance was  that  which  is  subject  to  accidents,  '  Tlien 
soldiers,'  quoth  Crambo,  '  are  the  most  substantial  people 
in  the  world.'  ^'either  would  he  allow  it  to  be  a  good 
definition  of  accident  that  it  could  be  present  or  absent 
without  the  destruction  of  the  subject,  since  there  are  a 
great  many  accidents  that  destroy  the  subject,  as  burniug 


206  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

does  a  house  and  deatli  a  roan.  But  as  to  that,  Cornelius 
informed  him  that  there  was  a  natural  death  and  a  logical 
death ;  and  that  though  a  man  after  his  natural  death  was 
incapable  of  the  least  parish  office,  yet  he  might  still  keep 
his  stall  among  the  logical  predicaments.  .  .  .  Crambe 
regretted  extremely  that  Substantial  Forms,  a  race  of 
harmless  beings  which  had  lasted  for  many  years  and  had 
afforded  a  comfortable  subsistence  to  many  poor  philoso- 
phers, should  now  be  hunted  down  like  so  many  wolves, 
without  the  possibility  of  retreat.  He  considered  that  it 
had  gone  much  harder  with  them  than  with  the  Essences, 
which  had  retired  from  the  schools  into  the  apothecaries' 
shops,  where  some  of  them  had  been  advanced  into  the 
degree  of  Quintessences.  He  thought  there  should  be  a 
retreat  for  poor  Substantial  Forms  amongst  the  gentleman- 
ushers  at  court ;  and  that  there  were,  indeed,  substantial 
forms,  such  as  forms  of  prayer  and  forms  of  government, 
without  which  the  things  themselves  could  never  long 
subsist." 

Arrived  at  maturity,  Leibniz  rose  at  once  to  clas- 
sic eminence.  He  became  a  conspicuous  figure,  he 
became  a  commanding  power,  not  only  in  the  intel- 
lectual world,  of  which  he  constituted  himself  the 
centre,  but  in  part  also  of  the  civil.  It  lay  in  the 
nature  of  his  genius  to  prove  all  things,  and  it  lay 
in  his  temperament  to  seek  rap2)ort  with  all  sorts 
of  men.  He  was  infinitely  related.  Not  an  indi- 
vidual of  note  in  his  day  but  was  linked  with  him 
by  some  common  interest  or  some  polemic  grapple ; 
not  a  savan  or  statesman  with  whom  Leibniz  did 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM    VON  LEIBNIZ.    207 

not  spin,  on  one  pretence  or  another,  a  thread  of 
communication.  Europe  was  reticulated  with  the 
meshes  of  his  correspondence.  "  Never,"  says  Vol- 
taire, "  was  intercourse  among  philosophers  more 
universal ;  Leibniz  sei^vait  a  Vanimer.''''  He  writes 
now  to  Spinoza  at  the  Hague,  to  suggest  new 
methods  of  manufacturing  lenses ;  now  to  Ma- 
gliabecchi  at  Florence,  urging,  in  elegant  Latin 
verses,  the  publication  of  his  bibliographical  dis- 
coveries ;  and  now  to  Grimaldi,  Jesuit  missionary 
in  China,  to  communicate  his  researches  in  Chinese 
philosophy.  He  hoped  by  means  of  the  latter  to 
operate  on  the  Emperor  Cham-Hi  with  the  Bya- 
dik ;  1  and  even  suggested  said  Dyadih  as  a  key  to 
the  cipher  of  the  book  ''  Ye  Kim,"  supposed  to  con- 
tain the  sacred  mysteries  of  Fo.  He  addresses 
Louis  XIV.,  now  on  the  subject  of  a  military  ex- 
pedition to  Egypt  (a  magnificent  idea,  which  it 
needed  a  Napoleon  to  realize),  now  on  the  best 
method  of  promoting  and  conserving  scientific 
knowledge.  He  corresponds  with  the  Landgrave 
of  Hesse-Rheinfels,  with  Bossuet,  and  with  Madame 
Brinon  on  the  Union  of  the  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant Churches,  and  with  Privy-Counsellor  von 
Spanheim    on   the   Union    of    the    Lutheran   and 

1  A  species  of  binary  arithmetic,  invented  by  Leibniz,  in  which 
the  only  figures  employed  are  0  and  I.  —  See  Kortholt :  G.  G. 
Leibuitii  Epistolas  ad  Diversos,  letter  xviii. 


208  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Reformed ;  with  Pere  cles  Bosses  on  Transiibstanti- 
ation,  and  with  Samuel  Clarke  on  Time  and  Space ; 
with  Remond  de  Montmort  on  Plato,  and  with 
Franke  on  Popular  Education ;  with  the  Queen  of 
Prussia  (his  pupil)  on  Free-will  and  Predestina- 
tion, and  with  the  Electress  Sophia,  her  mother 
(in  her  eighty-fourth  year),  on  English  politics; 
with  the  cabinet  of  Peter  the  Great  on  the  Slavonic 
and  Oriental  languages,  and  with  that  of  the  Ger- 
man Emperor  on  the  claims  of  George  Lewis  to 
the  honors  of  the  Electorate ;  and  finally,  with 
all  the  mvans  of  Europe  on  all  possible  scientific 
questions. 

Of  this  world-wide  correspondence  a  portion  re- 
lated to  the  sore  subject  of  his  litigated  claim  to 
originality  in  the  discovery  of  the  Differential  Cal- 
culus,—  a  matter  in  which  Leibniz  felt  himself 
grievously  wronged,  and  complained,  with  justice, 
of  the  treatment  he  received  at  the  hands  of  his 
contemporaries.  The  controversy  between  him  and 
Newton  respecting  this  hateful  topic  would  never 
have  originated  with  either  of  these  illustrious 
men,  had  it  depended  on  them  alone  to  vindicate 
their  respective  claims.  Officious  and  ill-advised 
friends  of  the  Englisli  philosopher,  partly  from  mis- 
guided zeal  and  partly  from  levelled  malice,  pre- 
ferred on  his  behalf  a  charge  of  plagiarism  against 
the  German  which  Newton  was  not  likely  to  have 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM    VON   LEIBNIZ.    209 

urged  for  himself.  '-  The  new  Calculus,  which 
Europe  lauds,  is  nothing  less,"  they  suggested, 
"  than  your  fluxionary  method,  which  M.  Leibniz 
has  pirated,  anticipating  its  tardy  publication  by 
the  genuine  author.  Why  suffer  your  laurels  to 
be  wrested  from  you  by  a  stranger  ?  "  Thereupon 
arose  the  notorious  Commereium  Uj^istoUcum,  in 
which  Wallis,  Fatio  de  Duillier,  Collins,  and  Keill 
were  perversely  active.  Melancholy  monument  of 
literary  and  national  jealousy  !  AVeary  record  of  a 
vain  strife  !  Ideas  are  no  man's  property.  As  well 
pretend  to  ownership  of  light,  or  set  up  a  claim  to 
private  estate  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Spirit  blows 
where  it  lists.  Truth  inspires  whom  it  finds.  He 
who  knows  best  to  conspire  with  it  has  it.  Both 
philosophers  swerved  fi'om  their  native  simplicity 
and  nobleness  of  soul.  Both  sinned  and  were 
sinned  against.  Leil)niz  did  unhandsome  things, 
but  he  was  sorely  tried.  His  heart  told  him  that 
the  right  of  the  quarrel  was  on  his  side,  and  the 
general  stupidity  would  not  see  it.  The  general 
malice,  rejoicing  in  aspersion  of  a  noble  name, 
would  not  see  it.  The  Royal  Society  would  not 
see  it,  nor  France,  until  long  after  Leibniz's  death. 
Sir  David  Brewster's  account  of  the  matter,  accord- 
ing to  the  German  authorities,  Gerhardt,  Guhrauer, 
and  others,  is  one-sided,  and  sins  by  aupjwesslo  veri^ 
ignoring  important  documents,  particularly  Leib- 
14 


210  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

niz's  letter  to  Oldenburg,  August  27,  1676.  Ger- 
liardt  has  published  Leibniz's  own  history  of  the 
Calculus  as  a  counter-statement.^  But  even  from 
Brewster's  account,  as  we  remember  it  (we  have  it 
not  by  us  at  this  writing),  there  is  no  more  reason 
to  doubt  that  Leibniz's  discovery  was  independent 
of  Newton's  than  that  Newton's  was  independent 
of  Leibniz's.  The  two  discoveries., ,  in  fact,  are 
not  identical ;  the  end  and  application  are  the 
same,  but  origin  and  process  differ,  and  the  Ger- 
man method  has  long  superseded  the  English. 
The  question  in  debate  has  been  settled  by  su- 
preme authority.  Leibniz  has  been  tried  by  his 
peers.  Euler,  Lagrange,  Laplace,  Poisson,  and 
Biot  have  honorably  acquitted  him  of  plagiarism, 

,         and  reinstated  him  in  his  rights  as  true  discoverer 

;    _c)f  the  Differential  Calculus. 

The  one  distinguishing  trait  of  Leibniz's  genius, 
and  the  one  pre-eminent  fact  in  his  history,  was 
what  Feuerbach  calls  his  irokvirpay^oarvvr]^  which, 
being  interpreted,  means  having  a  finger  in  every 
pie.  We  are  used  to  consider  him  as  a  man  of  let- 
ters ;  but  the  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent  in 
labors  of  quite  another  kind.  He  was  more  actor 
than  writer.  He  wrote  only  for  occasions,  at  the 
instigation   of   others,  or  to   meet   some   pressing 

1    Historia  et   Origo  Calculi   Differentialis,  a  G.  W.  Leibnitio 
conscripta. 


GOTTFRIED  WILIIELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     211 

demand  of  the  time.  Besides  occupying  himself 
with  mechanical  inventions,  some  of  which  (in  par- 
ticular his  improvement  of  Pascal's  Calculating 
Machine)  were  quite  famous  in  their  day;  be- 
sides his  project  of  a  universal  language,  and  his 
labors  to  bring  about  a  union  of  the  churches ; 
besides  undertaking  the  revision  of  the  laws  of  the 
German  Empire,  superintending  the  Hanoverian 
mines,  experimenting  in  the  culture  of  silk,  direct- 
ing the  medical  profession,  laboring  in  the  promo- 
tion of  popular  education,  establishing  academies 
of  science,  superintending  royal  libraries,  ransack- 
ing the  archives  of  Germany  and  Italy  to  find 
documents  for  his  history  of  the  House  of  Bruns- 
wick, a  work  of  immense  research,  ^  —  besides 
these  and  a  multitude  of  siniilar  and  dissimilar 
avocations,  he  was  deep  in  politics,  German  and 
European,  and  was  occupied  all  his  life  long  with 
political  negotiations.  He  was  a  courtier,  he  was 
a  diplo77iat ;  Avas  consulted  on  all  difficult  matters  of 
international  policy ;  was  employed  at  Hanover,  at 
Berlin,  at  Vienna,  in  the  public  and  secret  service 
of  ducal,  royal,  and  imperial  governments,  and 
charged  with  all  sorts  of  delicate  and  difficult  com- 
missions, —  matters  of  finance,  of  pacification,  of 

1  Anales  Imperii  Occidentis  Brunsvieensis.  Leibniz  succeeded 
in  discovering  at  Modena  the  lost  traces  of  that  connection  between 
the  lines  of  Brunswick  and  Este  which  had  been  surmised,  but 
nut  proved. 


212  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

treaty  and  appeal.  He  was  Europe's  factotum.  A 
complete  biography  of  the  man  would  be  an  epit- 
ome of  the  history  of  his  time.  The  number  and 
variety  of  his  public  engagements  were  such  as 
would  have  crazed  any  ordinary  brain.  And  to 
these  were  added  private  studies  not  less  multi- 
farious. "  I  am  distracted  beyond  all  account," 
he  writes  to  Vincent  Placcius.  "  I  am  making  ex- 
tracts from  archives,  inspecting  ancient  documents, 
hunting  up  unpublished  manuscripts :  all  this  to 
illustrate  the  history  of  Brunswick.  Letters  in 
great  number  I  receive  and  write.  Then  I  have  so 
many  discoveries  in  mathematics,  so  many  specula- 
tions in  philosophy,  so  many  other  literary  obser- 
vations, which  I  am  desirous  of  preserving,  that  I 
am  often  at  a  loss  what  to  take  hold  of  first,  and 
can  fairly  sympathize  in  that  saying  of  Ovid,  '  1  am 
straitened  by  my  abundance.'  "  ^ 

His  diplomatic  services  are  less  known  at  pres- 
ent than  his  literary  labors,  but  were  not  less 
esteemed  in  his  own  day.  When  Louis  XIV.,  in 
1688,  declared  war  against  the  German  Empire,  on 
the  pretence  that  the  Emperor  was  meditating  an 
invasion  of  France,  Leibniz  drew  up  the  Imperial 
manifesto,  which  repelled  the  charge  and  trium- 
phantly exposed  the  hollowness  of  Louis'  cause. 
Another  document,  prepared  by  him  at  the  solici- 
1  luopem  me  copia  facit. 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    213 

tation,  it  is  supposed,  of  several  of  the  courts  of 
Europe,  advocating  the  claims  of  Charles  of  Aus- 
tria to  the  vacant  throne  of  Spain,  in  opposition  to 
the  grandson  of  Louis,  and  setting  forth  the  in- 
jurious consequences  of  the  policy  of  the  French 
monarch,  was  hailed  by  his  contemporaries  as  a 
masterpiece  of  historical  learning  and  political  wis- 
dom. By  his  powerful  advocacy  of  the  cause  of 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  he  may  be  said  to  have 
aided  the  birth  of  the  kingdom  of  Prussia,  whose 
existence  dates  with  the  commencement  of  the  last 
century.  In  the  service  of  that  kingdom  he  wrote 
and  published  important  state  papers ;  among  them 
one  relating  to  a  point  of  contested  right  to  which 
recent  events  have  given  fresh  significance  :  "  Traitd 
Sommaire  du  Droit  de  Frederic  I.  Roi  de  Prusse  a 
la  Souverainete  de  Neufchatel  et  de  Yallengin  en 
Suisse." 

In  Vienna,  as  at  Berlin,  the  services  of  Leibniz 
were  subsidized  by  the  state.  By  the  peace  of 
Utrecht  the  House  of  Hapsburg  had  been  defeated 
in  its  claims  to  the  Spanish  throne,  and  the  foreign 
and  internal  affairs  of  the  Austrian  Government 
were  involved  in  many  perplexities  which,  it  was 
hoped,  the  philosopher's  counsel  might  help  to  un- 
tangle. He  was  often  present  at  the  private  meet- 
ings of  the  cabinet,  and  received  from  the  Emperor 
the  honorable  distinction  of  Kaisei'lichcr  Hofrath, 


214  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  addition  to  that  which  had  previously  been 
awarded  to  him,  of  Baron  of  the  Empire.  The 
highest  post  in  the  gift  of  Government  was  open 
to  him,  on  condition  of  renouncing  his  Protestant 
faith,  which,  notwithstanding  his  tolerant  feeling 
toward  the  Roman  Church,  and  the  splendid  com- 
pensations which  awaited  such  a  convertite,  he 
could  never  be  prevailed  upon  to  do. 

A  natural,  but  very  remarkable,  consequence  of 
this  manifold  activity  and  lifelong  absorption  in 
public  affairs  was  the  failure  of  so  great  a  thinker 
to  produce  a  single  systematic  and  elaborate  work 
containing  a  complete  and  detailed  exposition  of 
his  philosophical,  and  especially  his  ontological, 
views.  For  such  an  exposition  Leibniz  could  find 
at  no  period  of  his  life  the  requisite  time  and 
scope.  In  the  vast  multitude  of  his  productions 
there  is  no  complete  philosophic  work.  The  most 
arduous  of  his  literary  labors  are  historical  compi- 
lations made  in  the  service  of  the  state.  Such 
were  the  "  History  of  the  House  of  Brunswick," 
already  mentioned,  the  "  Accessiones  Historiae," 
the  "  Scriptores  Rerum  Brunsvicensium  Illustrati- 
oni  inservientes,"  and  the  "  Codex  Juris  Gentium 
Diplomaticus,"  —  works  involving  an  incredible 
amount  of  labor  and  research,  but  adding  little  to 
his  postumous  fame.  His  philosophical  studies 
after  entering  the  Hanoverian   service,  which  he 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    215 

did  in  his  thirtieth  year,  were  pursued,  as  he  tells 
his  correspondent  Placcius,  by  stealth ;  that  is,  at 
odd  moments  snatched  from  official  duties  and 
the  cares  of  state.  Accordingly,  his  metaphysical 
works  have  all  a  fragmentary  character.  Instead 
of  systematic  treatises,  they  are  loose  papers,  con- 
tributions to  journals  and  magazines,  or  sketches 
prepared  for  the  use  of  friends.  They  are  all  oc- 
casional productions,  elicited  by  some  external 
cause,  not  prompted  by  inward  necessity.  The 
"  Nouveaux  Essais,"  his  most  considerable  work 
in  that  department,  originated  in  comments  on 
Locke,  and  was  not  published  until  after  his  death. 
The  "  Monadology "  is  a  series  of  propositions 
drawn  up  for  the  use  of  Prince  Eugene,  and  was 
never  intended  to  be  made  public  ;  and  probably 
the  "  Theodicee  "  would  never  have  seen  the  light 
except  for  his  cultivated  and  loA^ed  pupil,  the  Queen 
of  Prussia,  for  whose  instruction  it  was  designed. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  and  a  good  illustration  of  the 
state  of  letters  in  Germany  at  that  time,  that  Leib- 
niz wrote  so  little  —  almost  nothing  of  importance 
—  in  his  native  tongue.  In  Erdmann's  edition  of 
his  philosophical  works  there  are  only  two  short 
essays  in  German  ;  the  rest  are  all  Latin  or  French. 
He  had  it  in  contemplation  at  one  time  to  establish 
a  philosophical  journal  in  Berlin,  but  doubts,  in 
his  letter  to  M.  La  Croye  on  the  subject,  in  what 


216  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

language  it  sliould  be  conducted  :  "  II  y  a  quelque 
terns  que  j'ay  pense  a  un  journal  de  Savans  qu'on 
pourroit  publier  a  Berlin,  mais  je  suis  un  pen  en 
doute  sur  la  langue.  .  .  .  Mais  soit  qu'on  prit  le 
Latin  ou  le  Francois/'  ^  etc.  It  seems  never  to 
have  occurred  to  him  that  such  a  journal  might 
be  published  in  German.  That  language  was  then, 
and  for  a  long  time  after,  regarded  by  educated 
Germans  very  much  as  the  Russian  is  regarded  at 
the  present  day,  —  as  the  language  of  vulgar  life, 
unsuited  to  learned  or  polite  intercourse.  Frederic 
the  Great,  a  century  later,  thought  as  meanly  of  its 
adaptation  to  literary  purposes  as  did  the  contem- 
poraries of  Leibniz.  When  Gellert,  at  his  request, 
repeated  to  him  one  of  his  fables,  he  expressed  his 
surprise  that  anything  so  clever  could  be  produced 
in  German.  It  may  be  said  in  apology  for  this  ne- 
glect of  their  native  tongue,  that  the  German  schol- 
ars of  that  age  would  have  had  a  very  inadequate 
audience,  had  their  communications  been  confined 
to  that  language.  Leibniz  craved  and  deserved  a 
wider  sphere  for  his  thoughts  than  the  use  of  the 
German  could  give  him.  It  ought,  however,  to  be 
remembered  to  his  credit^  that  as  language  in  gen- 
eral was  one  among  the  numberless  topics  he  in- 
vestigated, so  the  German  in  particular  engaged 
at  one  time  his  special  attention.     It  was  made  the 

1  Kortholt :  Epistolse  ad  Diversos,  vol.  i. 


GOTTFRIED    WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ,    217 

subject  of  a  disquisition  which  suggested  to  the 
Berlin  Academy  in  the  next  century  the  method 
adopted  by  that  body  for  the  culture  and  improve- 
ment of  the  national  speech.  In  this  writing,  as 
in  all  his  German  compositions,  he  manifested  a 
complete  command  of  the  language,  and  imparted 
to  it  a  purity  and  elegance  of  diction  very  uncom- 
mon in  his  day.  The  German  of  Leibniz  is  less 
antiquated  at  this  moment  than  the  English  of 
his  contemporary,  Locke. 


LEIBNIZ'S   PHILOSOPHY. 

The  interest  to  us  in  this  extraordinary  man  — 
who  died  at  Hanover,  1716,  in  the  midst  of  his 
labors  and  projects  —  turns  mainly  on  his  specu- 
lative philosophy.  It  was  only  as  an  incidental 
pursuit  that  he  occupied  himself  with  metaphysic, 
yet  no  philosopher  since  Aristotle  —  with  whom, 
though  claiming  to  be  more  Platonic  than  Aristo- 
telian, he  has  much  in  common  —  has  furnished 
more  luminous  hints  for  the  elucidation  of  metaphy- 
sical problems.  The  problems  he  attempted  were 
those  which  concern  the  most  inscrutable,  but  to 
the  genuine  metaphysician  most  fascinating,  of  all 
topics,  —  the  nature  of  substance,  matter  and  spirit, 
absolute  being ;  in  a  word,  Ontology.  This  depart- 
ment  of    metaphysic,  the   most   interesting,   and, 


218  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

agonisticallif,'^  the  most  important  branch  of  that 
study,  has  been  deliberately,  purposely,  and,  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  uniformly  avoided  by  the 
English  metaphysicians,  so-called,  with  Locke  at 
their  head,  and  equally  by  their  Scottish  succes- 
sors, until  the  recent  "  Institutes  "  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor of  St.  Andrew's.  Locke's  "  Essay  concerning 
the  Human  Understanding,"  a  century  and  a  half 
ago,  diverted  the  English  mind  from  metaphysic 
proper  into  what  is  commonly  called  Psychology, 
but  ought  of  right  to  be  termed  Noology^  or  "  Phil- 
osophy of  the  Human  Mind,"  as  Dugald  Stewart 
entitled  his  treatise.  This  is  the  study  which  lias 
usually  taken  the  place  of  metaphysic  at  Cam- 
bridge and  other  colleges.  We  well  remember  our 
disappointment  when,  at  the  usual  stage  in  the  col- 
lege curriculum,  we  were  promised  "  metaphysics," 
and  were  set  to  grind  in  Stewart's  profitless  mill, 
where  so  few  problems  of  either  practical  or  theo- 
retical importance  are  brought  to  the  hopper,  and 
where,  in  fact,  the  object  is  rather  to  show  how  the 
upper  millstone  revolves  upon  the  nether  (reflec- 
tion upon  sensation),  and  how  the  grist  is  conveyed 
to  the  feeder,  than  to  realize  actual  metaphysical 
flour. 

Locke's   reason  for  repudiating  ontology  is  the 

1  That  is,  as  a  discipline  of  the  faculties,  —  the  chief  benefit  to 
be  derived  from  any  kind  of  metaphysical  study. 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.    219 

alleged  impossibility  of  arriving  at  truth  in  that 
pursuit,  — "  of  finding  satisfaction  in  a  quiet  and 
sure  possession  of  truths  that  most  concern  us, 
whilst  we  let  loose  our  thoughts  into  the  vast  ocean 
of  being."  ^  Unfortunately,  however,  as  Kant  has 
shown,  the  results  of  noological  inquiry  are  just  as 
questionable  as  those  of  ontology,  whilst  the  topics 
on  which  it  is  employed  are  of  far  inferior  moment. 
If,  as  Locke  intimates,  we  can  know  nothing  of 
being  without  first  analyzing  the  understanding,  it 
is  equally  sure  that  we  can  know  nothing  of  the 
understanding  except  in  union  with  and  in  action 
on  being.  And  excepting  his  own  fundamental 
position  concerning  the  sensuous  origin  of  our 
ideas,  there  is  hardly  a  theorem,  in  all  the  writings 
of  this  school,  of  prime  and  vital  significance.  The 
school  is  tartly,  but  aptly,  characterized  by  Professor 
Ferrier :  — 

"  Would  people  inquire  directly  into  the  laws  of  thought 
and  of  knowledge  by  merely  looking  to  knowledge  or  to 
thought  itself,  without  attending  to  what  is  known  or  what 
is  thought  of  1  Psychology  usually  goes  to  work  in  this  abs- 
tract fashion  ;  but  such  a  mode  of  procedure  is  hopeless, 
—  as  hopeless  as  the  analogous  instance  by  which  the  wits 
of  old  were  wont  to  typify  any  particularly  fruitless  under- 
taking; namely,  the  operation  of  milking  a  he-goat  into 
a  sieve.  Ko  milk  comes,  in  the  first  place,  and  even  that 
the  sieve  will  not  retain  !    There  is  a  loss  of  nothing  twice 

1  Essay,  book  i.  chap.  1,  sect.  7. 


220  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

over.  Like  the  man  milking,  the  inquirer  obtains  no  milk 
in  the  first  place  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  he  loses  it,  like 
the  man  holding  the  sieve.  .  .  .  Our  Scottish  philosophy, 
in  particular,  has  presented  a  spectacle  of  this  description. 
Reid  obtained  no  result,  owing  to  the  abstract  nature  of 
his  inquiry  ;  and  the  nothingness  of  his  system  has  escaped 
through  all  the  sieves  of  his  successors."  ^ 

Leibniz's  metaphysical  speculations  are  scattered 
through  a  wide  variety  of  writings,  many  of  which 
are  letters  to  his  contemporaries.  These  Professor 
Erdmann  has  incorporated  in  his  edition  of  the 
Philosophical  Works.  Besides  these  we  may  men- 
tion, as  particularly  deserving  of  notice,  the  "  Medi- 
tationes  de  Cognitione,  Veritate  et  Ideis,"  the 
''Systeme  Nouveau  de  la  Nature,"  "De  Prim^ 
Philosophise  Emendatione,  et  de  Notione  Substan- 
tise,"  "Reflexions  sur  I'Essai  de  rEntendement 
humaiii,"  "  De  Rerum  Originatione  Radicali,"  "  De 
ipsa  Natura,"  "  Considerations  sur  la  Doctrine  d'un 
Esprit  universel,"  "  Nouveaux  Essais  sur  I'Entcn- 
dement  humain,"  "  Considerations  sur  le  Principe 
de.Vie."  To  these  we  must  add  the  "  Theodicee  " 
(though  more  theological  than  metaphysical)  and 
the  "  Monadologie,"  the  most  compact  philosophi- 
cal treatise  of  modern  time.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that,  writing  in  the  desultory,  fragmentary,  and 
accidental   way   he   did,  he   not   only   wrote  with 

1  Institutes  of  Metaphjsic,  p.  301. 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     221 

unexampled  clearness  on  matters  the  most  abs- 
truse, but  never,  that  we  are  aware,  in  all  the 
variety  of  his  communications,  extending  over  so 
many  years,  contradicted  himself.  No  philosopher 
is  more  intelligible,  none  more  consequent. 

In  philosophy  Leibniz  was  a  Realist.  We  use 
that  term  in  the  modern,  not  in  the  scholastic, 
sense.  In  the  scholastic  sense,  as  w^e  have  seen, 
he  w^as  not  a  Realist,  but  from  childhood  up,  a 
Nominalist.  But  the  Realism  of  the  schools  has 
less  affinity  with  the  Realism  than  with  the  Ideal- 
ism of  the  present  day. 

His  opinions  must  be  studied  in  connection  with 
those  of  his  contemporaries. 

Descartes,  Spinoza,  Locke,  and  Leibniz,  the  four 
most  distinguished  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  represent  four  widely  different  and  cardi- 
nal tendencies  in  philosophy,  —  Dualism,  Idealism, 
Sensualism,^  and  Realism. 

Descartes  perceived  the  incompatibility  of  the 
two  primary  qualities  of  being,  thought  and  ex- 
tension, as  attributes  of  one  and  the  same  (created) 
substance.  He  therefore  postulated  two  (created) 
substances,  —  one  characterized  by  thought  with- 
out extension,  the  other  by  extension  without 
thought.      These  two  are   so  alien  and  so  incon- 

1  We  regret  the  necessity  of  using  a  word  which  is  oftener  used 
in  a  bad  sense  very  different  froiu  the  one  here  intended. 


222  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

gruous  that  neither  can  influence  the  other,  or  deter- 
mine the  other,  or  any  way  relate  with  the  other, 
except  by  direct  mediation  of  Deity  (the  doctrine 
of  Occasional  Causes).  This  is  Dualism,  —  that 
sharp  and  rigorous  antithesis  of  mind  and  mat- 
ter which  Descartes,  if  he  did  not  originate  it, 
was  the  first  to  develop  into  philosophic  signifi- 
cance, and  which  ever  since  has  been  the  prevail- 
ing ontology  of  the  Western  world.  So  deeply  has 
the  thought  of  that  master  mind  inwrought  itself 
\       into  the  very  consciousness  of  humanity ! 

Spinoza  saw  that  if  God  alone  can  bring  mind 
and  matter  together  and  effect  a  relation  between 
them,  it  follows  that  mind  and  matter,  or  their 
attributes,  however  contrary,  do  meet  in  Deity ; 
and  if  so,  what  need  of  three  distinct  natures  ? 
What  need  of  two  substances  besides  God,  as  sub- 
jects of  these  attributes  ?  Retain  the  middle  term 
and  drop  the  extremes,  and  you  have  the  Spinozan 
doctrine  of  one  (uncreated)  substance,  combining 
the  attributes  of  thought  and  extension. »  This  is 
Pantheism,  or  objective  idealism,  as  distinguished 
from  the  subjective  idealism  of  Fichte.  Strange 
that  the  stigma  of  atheism  should  have  been  affixed 
to  a  system  whose  very  starting-point  is  Deity, 
and  whose  great  characteristic  is  the  igyioration 
of  everything  but  Deity,  insomuch  that  the  pure 
and  devout  Novalis  pronounced  the  author  a  God- 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     223 

drunken  man,  and  Spinozism  a  surfeit  of  Deity.  ^ 
Naturally  enough,  the  charge  of  atheism  comes 
from  the  unbelieving  Bayle,  whose  omnivorous 
mind,  like  the  anaconda,  assisted  its  enormous  de- 
glutition with  a  poisonous  saliva  of  its  own,  and 
wdiose  negative  temper  makes  the  "  Dictionnaire 
Historique  "  more  Morgue  than    Valhalla. 

Locke,  who  combined  in  a  strange  union  strong 
religious  faith  with  philosophic  unbelief,  turned 
aside,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  questions  which 
had  occupied  liis  predecessors  ;  knew  little  and 
cared  less  about  substance  and  accident,  matter 
and  spirit ;  but  set  himself  to  investigate  the  nature 
of  the  organ  itself  by  wdiich  truth  is  apprehended. 
In  this  investigation  he  began  by  emptying  the 
mind  of  all  native  elements  of  knowledge.  He 
repudiated  any  snpposed  dower  of  original  truths 
or  innate  or  connate  ideas,  and  endeavored  to  show 
how,  by  acting  on  the  report  of  the  senses  and 
personal  experience,  the  understanding  arrives  at 
all  the  ideas  of  wdiich  it  is  conscious.  The  mode 
of  procedure  in  this  case  is  empiricism ;  the  result 
with  Locke  was  sensualism,  —  more  fully  developed 
by  Condillac  ^  in  the  next  century.     But  the  same 

1  Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  Pantheism  is  not  Theism, 
and  the  one  substance  of  Spinoza  is  very  unlike  the  one  God  of 
theology ;  but  neither  is  the  doctrine  Atheism  in  any  legitimate 
sense. 

'^  Essai  sur  I'Origine  des  Connaissances  humaines. 


224  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

method  may  lead,  as  in  the  case  of  Berkeley,  to 
immaterialism,  falsely  called  idealism.  Or  it  may 
lead,  as  in  the  case  of  Helvetius,  to  material- 
ism. Locke  himself  would  probably  have  landed  in 
materialism,  had  he  followed  freely  the  bent  of 
his  own  thought,  without  the  restraints  of  a  cau- 
tious temper,  and  respect  for  the  common  and  tra- 
ditional opinion  of  his  time.  The  "  Essay  "  discov- 
ers an  unmistakable  leaning  in  that  direction ;  as 
where  the  author  supposes, — 

"  We  shall  never  be  able  to  know  whether  any  mere 
material  being  thinks  or  no ;  it  being  impossible  for  us,  by 
the  contemplation  of  our  own  ideas,  without  revelation,  to 
discover  whether  Omnipotency  has  not  given  to  some 
systems  of  matter  fitly  disposed  a  power  to  perceive  and 
think ;  ...  it  being,  in  respect  of  our  notions,  not  much 
more  remote  from  our  comprehension  to  conceive  that  God 
can,  if  he  pleases,  superadd  to  matter  a  faculty  of  think- 
ing, than  that  he  should  superadd  to  it  another  substance 
with  a  faculty  of  thinking,  since  we  know  not  wherein 
tliinking  consists,  nor  to  what  sort  of  substances  the 
Almighty  has  been  pleased  to  give  that  power,  which 
cannot  be  in  any  created  being  but  merely  by  the  good 
pleasure  and  bounty  of  the  Creator.  For  I  see  no  con- 
tradiction in  it,  that  the  first  thinking  eternal  Being 
should,  if  he  pleased,  give  to  certain  systems  of  created, 
senseless  matter,  put  together  as  he  thinks  fit,  some  degrees 
of  sense,  perception,  and  thought."^ 

With  such  notions  of  the  nature  of  thought,  as 

1  Book  iv.  chap.  3,  sect.  6. 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    225 

a  kind  of  mechanical  contrivance  that  can  be  con- 
ferred outright  by  an  arbitrary  act  of  Deity,  and 
attached  to  one  nature  as  well  as  another,  it  is 
evident  that  Locke  could  have  had  no  idea  of 
spirit  as  conceived  by  metaphysicians,  or  no  be- 
lief in  that  idea,  if  conceived.  And  with  such 
conceptions  of  Deity  and  Divine  operations,  as  con- 
sisting in  absolute  power  dissociated  from  abso- 
lute reason,  one  would  not  be  surprised  to  find 
him  asserting  that  God,  if  he  pleased,  might  make 
two  and  two  to  be  one,  instead  of  four  ;  that  math- 
ematical laws  are  arbitrary  determinations  of  the 
Supreme  Will ;  that  a  thing  is  true  only  as  God 
wills  it  to  be  so, —  in  line,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  absolute  truth.  The  resort  to  "  Omnipo- 
tency "  in  such  matters  is  more  convenient  than 
philosophical ;  it  is  a  dodging  of  the  question,  in- 
stead of  an  attempt  to  solve  it.  Divine  ordina- 
tion—  Alo^  8'  ereXeiero  j3ov\r)  —  is  a  maxim  which 
settles  all  difficulties ;  but  it  also  precludes  all  in- 
quiry. Why  speculate  at  all,  with  this  universal 
solvent  at  hand  ? 

The  ''  contradiction  "  which  Locke  could  not  see 
was  clearly  seen  and  keenly  felt  by  Leibniz.  The 
arbitrary  will  of  God,  to  him,  was  no  solution.  He 
believed  in  necessary  truths  independent  of  the 
Supreme  Will ;  in  other  words,  he  believed  that 
the  Supreme  Will  is  but  the  organ  of  the  Supreme 
15 


226  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Reason :  ''  II  ne  faut  point  s'imaginer  que  les 
v^rites  eternelles,  etant  dependantes  de  Dieu,  sont 
arbitraires  et  dependant  de  sa  volonte."  He  felt, 
with  Descartes,  the  incompatibility  of  thought 
with  extension,  considered  as  an  immanent  quality 
of  substance,  and  he  shared  with  Spinoza  the  unific 
propensity  which  distinguishes  the  higher  order  of 
philosophic  minds.  Dualism  was  an  offence  to 
him.  On  the  other  hand,  he  differed  from  Spinoza 
in  his  vivid  sense  of  individuality,  of  personality. 
The  pantheistic  idea  of  a  single,  sole  being,  of 
which  all  other  beings  are  mere  modalities,  was 
also  and  equally  an  offence  to  him.  He  saw  well 
the  illusoriness  and  unfruitfulness  of  such  a  uni- 
verse as  Spinoza  dreamed.  He  saw  it  to  be  a  vain 
imagination,  a  dream-world,  "  without  form,  and 
void,"  nowhere  blossoming  into  reality.  The  phil- 
osophy of  Leibniz  is  equally  remote  from  that  of 
Descartes  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  that  of  Spi- 
noza on  the  other.  He  diverges  from  the  former 
on  the  question  of  substance,  which  Descartes 
conceived  as  consisting  of  two  kinds,  one  active 
(thinking),  and  one  passive  (extended)^  but  which 
Leibniz  conceives  to  be  all  and  only  active.  He 
explodes  Dualism,  and  resolves  the  antithesis  of 
matter  and  spirit  by  positing  extension  as  a  con- 
tinuous act  instead  of  a  passive  mode  ;  substance 
as  an  active  force  instead  of  an  inert  mass  ;  matter 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     227 

as  substance  appearing,  communicating,  —  as  the 
necessary  band  and  relation  of  spirits  among  them- 
selves.i 

He  parts  company  with  Spinoza  on  the  question 
of  individuality.  Substance  is  homogeneous  ;  but 
substances,  or  beings,  are  infinite.  Spinoza  looked 
upon  the  universe,  and  saw  in  it  the  undivided 
background  on  which  the  objects  of  human  con- 
sciousness are  painted  as  momentary  pictures. 
Leibniz  looked,  and  saw  that  background,  like 
the  background  of  one  of  Raphael's  Madonnas, 
instinct   with  individual   life   and    swarming   with 

1  The  following  passages  may  serve  as  illustrations  of  these 
positions  :  — 

"Materia  habet  de  se  actum  entitativum."  —  De  Princip.  Indiv. 
Coroll.  i. 

"  Dicam  interim  notionem  virium  seu  virtutis  (quam  Germani 
vocant  Kraft,  Gain  la  force),  cui  ego  explicandae  peculiarem  Djna- 
mices  scientiam  destinavi,  plurimum  lucis  afferre  ad  veram  notio- 
nem substantias  intelligendam."  —  De  Primoi  Philosoph.  Emtndat.  et 
de  Notione  Sahstantue. 

"  Corpus  ergo  est  agens  extensum  ;  dici  poterit  esse  substantiam 
extensam,  modo  teneatur  omnem  substantiam  agere,  at  omne  agens 
substantiam  appellari.  .  .  .  Patebit  non  tantum  mentes,  sed  etiam 
substantias  omnes  in  loco,  non  nisi  per  operationem  esse.  "  —  De 
Vera  Method.  Phil,  et  TheoL 

"  Extensionem  concipere  ut  absolutum  ex  eo  forte  oritur  quod 
spatium  concipimus  per  modum  substantias."  — Ad  Des  Bosses  Ep. 
xxix. 

"  Car  I'etendue  ne  signifie  qu'une  repetition  ou  multiplicite  con- 
tinuee  de  ce  qui  est  repandu."  —  Extrait  d'une  Leitre,  etc. 

"Et  Ton  pent  dire  que  retendue  est  en  quelque  la^on  a  I'es- 
pace  comme  la  dure'e  est  au  tems."  —  Exam,  des  Pnnctpes  de 
Malebranche. 


228  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

intelligences  which  look  out  from  every  point  of 
(space.  Leibniz's  universe  is  composed  of  Monads, 
'that  is,  units,  individual  substances  or  entities, 
i  having  neither  extension,  parts,  nor  figure,  and, 
I  of  course,  indivisible.  These  are  "  the  veritable 
\atoms   of   nature,  the  elements  of  things." 

The  monad  is  unformed  and  imperishable ;  it  has 
no  natural  end  or  beginning.  It  could  begin  to  be 
only  by  creation  ;  it  can  cease  to  be  only  by  anni- 
hilation. It  cannot  be  affected  from  without,  or 
changed  in  its  interior  by  any  other  creature.  Still, 
it  must  have  qualities,  without  which  it  would  not 
be  an  entity.  And  monads  must  differ  one  from 
another,  or  there  would  be  no  changes  in  our  expe- 
rience ;  since  all  that  takes  place  in  compound 
bodies  is  derived  from  the  simples  which  compose 
them.  Moreover,  the  monad,  though  uninfluenced 
from  without,  is  changing  continually  ;  the  change 
proceeds  from  an  internal  principle.  Every  monad 
is  subject  to  a  multitude  of  affections  and  rela- 
tions, although  without  parts.  This  shifting  state, 
which  represents  multitude  in  unity,  is  nothing 
else  than  what  we  call  Perception^  which  must  be 

"  La  nature  de  la  substance  consistant  a  inon  avis  dans  cette 
tendance  reglee  de  laquelle  les  phenomenes  naissent  par  ordre."  — 
Lettre  a  M.  Buij/e. 

"  Car  rien  n'a  mieux  marque  la  substance  que  la  puissance 
d'agir."  —  Rcponse  aux  Objections  du  P.  Land. 

"  S'il  n'y  avait  que  des  esprits,  lis  seraient  sans  la  liaison  neces- 
saire,  sans  I'ordre  des  terns  et  des  lieux."  —  The'od.,  sect.  120. 


:w 


\ 


GOTTFRIED  WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.    229 

carefully  distinguished  from  Appercejytion,  or  con- 
sciousness. And  the  action  of  the  internal  prin- 
ciple which  causes  cliange  in  the  monad,  or  a 
passing  from  one  perception  to  another,  is  Apj^e- 
tition.  The  desire  docs  not  always  attain  to  the 
perception  to  which  it  tends,  but  it  always  effects 
something,  and  causes  a  change  of  perceptions. 

Leibniz  differs  from  Locke  in  maintaining  that 
perception  is  inexplicable  and  inconceivable  on 
mechanical  principles.  It  is  always  the  act  of  a 
simple  substance,  never  of  a  compound.  And  "  in 
simple  substances  there  is  nothing  but  perceptions 
and  their  changes."  ^  He  differs  from  Locke,  fur- 
thermore, on  the  question  of  the  origin  of  ideas. 
This  question,  he  says,  "  is  not  a  preliminary  one 
in  philosophy,  and  one  must  have  made  great  pro- 
gress to  be  able  to  grapple  successfully  with  it." 
"  Meanwliile,  I  think  I  may  say  that  our  ideas,  even 
those  of  sensible  objects,  viennent  de  notre  propre 
fond.  ...  I  am  by  no  means  for  the  tabula  rasa 
of  Aristotle ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  to  me  some- 
thing rational  (quelque  chose  de  solide)  in  what  Plato 
called  reminiscence.  Nay,  more  than  that,  we  have 
not  only  a  reminiscence  of  all  our  past  thoughts,  but 
we  have  also  a  p)resentiment  of  all  our  thoughts."  ^ 

Mr.  Lewes,  in  his  "  Biographical  History  of  Phil- 

1  Monadology,  17. 

2  Reflexions  sur  I'Essai  de  I'Eatendement  humain. 


230  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

osopliy,"  speaks  of  the  essay  from  Tvhich  these 
words  are  quoted  as  written  in  "  a  somewhat 
supercilious  tone."  We  are  unable  to  detect  any 
such  feature  in  it.  That  trait  was  wholly  foreign 
from  Leibniz's  nature.  "  Car  je  suis  des  plus 
dociles,"  he  says  of  himself  in  this  same  essay. 
He  was  the  most  tolerant  of  philosophers.  "  Je 
ne  meprise  presque  rien."  "  Nemo  est  ingenio 
minus  quani  ego  censorio."  "  Mirum  dictu  :  probo 
pleraque  quae  lego."  "  Non  admodum  refutationes 
quserere  aut  legere  soleo." 

To  return  to  the  monads.  Each  monad,  accord- 
ing to  Leibniz,  is,  properly  speaking,  a  soul,  inas- 
much as  each  is  endowed  with  perception.  But  in 
order  to  distinguish  those  which  have  only  percep- 
tion from  those  which  have  also  sentiment  and 
memory,  he  will  call  the  latter  sow?s,  the  former 
monads  or  entelechies.  ^  Tlie  naked  monad,  he 
says,  has  perceptions  without  relief,  or  "  enhanced 
flavor;"  it  is  in  a  state  of  stupor.  Death,  he 
thinks,  may  produce  this  state  for  a  time  in  ani- 
mals.    The  monads  completely  fill  the  world  ;  there 

1  Entelechy  {ivTeXex^ia)  is  an  Aristotelian  term,  signifying  activ- 
ity, or  more  properly,  perliaps,  self-action.  Leibniz  understands 
by  it  something  complete  in  itself  (^x*"'  ''"^  eVreAes).  Mr.  Butler, 
in  his  "  History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,"  lately  reprinted  in  this 
country,  translates  it  "  act."  "  Function,"  we  think,  would  be  a 
better  rendering  (see  W.  Archer  Butler's  "  Lectures,"  Last  Series, 
lect.  2).  Aristotle  uses  the  word  as  a  definition  of  the  soul. 
"  The  soul,"  he  says,  "  is  the  first  entelechy  of  an  active  body." 


GOTTFRIED   WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     231 

is  never  and  nowhere  a  void,  and  never  complete 
inanimateness  and  inertness.  The  universe  is  a 
plcnu7n  of  souls.  Wherever  we  behold  an  organic 
whole  (iinum  per  se),  there  monads  are  grouped 
around  a  central  monad  to  which  thc}^  are  sul^or- 
dinate,  and  which  they  are  constrained  to  serve  so 
long  as  that  connection  lasts.  Masses  of  inorganic 
matter  are  aggregations  of  monads,  without  a  re- 
gent, or  sentient  soul  (tinum  per  accidens).  There 
can  be  no  monad  without  matter,  that  is,  without 
society,  and  no  soul  without  a  body.  Not  only  the 
human  soul  is  indestructible  and  immortal,  but 
also  the  animal  soul.  There  is  no  generation  out 
of  notliing,  and  no  absolute  death.  Birth  is  expan- 
sion, development,  growth  ;  and  death  is  contrac- 
tion, envelopment,  decrease.  The  monads  which 
are  destined  to  become  human  souls  have  existed 
from  the  beginning  in  organic  matter,  but  only  as 
sentient  or  animal  souls,  without  reason.  They 
remain  in  this  condition  until  the  generation  of  the 
human  beings  to  which  they  belong,  and  then 
develop  themselves  into  rational  souls.  The  dif- 
ferent organs  and  members  of  the  body  are  also 
relatively  souls  which  collect  around  them  a  num- 
ber of  monads  for  a  specific  purpose,  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum.  Matter  is  not  only  infinitely  divisible, 
but  infinitely  divided.  All  matter  (so  called)  is 
living  and  active.     "Every  particle  of  matter  may 


232  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

be  conceived  as  a  garden  of  plants  or  as  a  pond 
full  of  fishes.  But  each  branch  of  each  plant,  each 
member  of  each  animal,  each  drop  of  their  humors, 
is  in  turn  another  such  garden  or  pond."  ^  The 
connection  between  monads,  consequently  the  con- 
nection between  soul  and  body,  is  not  composition, 
but  an  organic  relation,  —  in  some  sort  a  sponta- 
neous relation.  The  soul  forms  its  own  body,  and 
moulds  it  to  its  purpose.  This  hypothesis  was 
afterwards  embraced  and  developed  as  a  physiolo- 
gical principle  by  Stahl.  As  all  the  atoms  in  one 
body  are  organically  related,  so  all  the  beings  in 
the  universe  are  organically  related  to  each  other 
and  to  the  All.  One  creature,  or  one  organ  of 
a  creature,  being  given,  there  is  given  with  it  the 
world's  history  from  the  beginning  to  the  end. 
AH  bodies  are  strictly  fluid ;  the  universe  is  in 
flux. 

The  principle  of  continuity  answers  the  same 
purpose  in  Leibniz's  system  that  the  single  sub- 
stance does  in  Spinoza's  ;  it  vindicates  the  essen- 
tial unity  of  all  being.  Yet  the  two  conceptions 
are  immeasurably  different,  and  constitute  an  im- 
measurable difference  between  the  two  systems, 
considered  in  their  practical  and  moral  bearings, 
as    well  as    their    ontological    aspects.      Spinoza  ^ 

1  Monadol.  67. 

2  See  Helferich  :  Spinoza  und  Leibniz,  p.  76. 


GOTTFRIED  WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     233 

starts  with  the  idea  of  the  Infinite,  or  the  All- 
One,  from  which  there  is  no  logical  deduction  of 
the  individual ;  and  in  Spinoza's  system  the  indi- 
vidual does  not  exist  except  as  a  modality.  But 
the  existence  of  the  individual  is  one  of  the  primor- 
dial truths  of  the  human  mind,  the  foremost  fact 
of  consciousness.  With  this,  therefore,  Leibniz 
begins,  and  arrives,  by  logical  induction,  to  the 
Absolute  and  Supreme.  Spinoza  ends  where  he 
begins,  in  pantheism ;  tlie  moral  result  of  his  sys- 
tem, Godward,  is  fatalism,  —  manward,  indifferen- 
tism  and  negation  of  moral  good  and  evil.  Leibniz 
ends  in  theism  ;  the  moral  result  of  his  system, 
Godward,  is  optimism,  —  manward,  liberty,  personal 
responsibility,  moral  obligation. 

He  demonstrates  the  being  of  God  by  the  neces- 
sity of  a  sufficient  reason  to  account  for  the  series 
of  things.  Each  finite  thing  requires  an  antece- 
dent or  contingent  cause.  But  the  supposition  of 
an  endless  sequence  of  contingent  causes  or  finite 
things  is  absurd ;  the  series  must  have  had  a 
beginning,  and  that  beginning  cannot  have  been  a 
contingent  cause  or  finite  thing.  "  The  final  rea- 
son of  things  must  be  found  in  a  necessary  sub- 
stance in  which  the  detail  of  changes  exists 
eminently  Qne  soit  qu'ejiiinement^^  as  in  its  source; 
and  tliis  is  w^hat  we  call  God."  ^     The  idea  of  God 

1  Monadol.  88. 


234  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  of  such  a  nature  that  the  being  corresponding 
to  it,  if  possible,  must  be  actual.  We  have  the 
idea;  it  involves  no  bounds,  no  negation,  con- 
sequently no  contradiction.  It  is  the  idea  of  a 
possible,  therefore  of  an  actual. 

"  God  is  the  primitive  Unity,  or  the  simple  original  Sub- 
stance of  which  all  the  creatures,  or  original  monads,  are 
the  products,  and  aj^e  generated,  so  to  speak,  hy  continual 
fulgurations  from  moment  to  moment,  hounded  hy  the  recep- 
tivity of  the  creature,  of  whose  existence  limitation  is  an 
essential  'condition."  ^ 

The  philosophic  theologian  and  the  Christian- 
izing philosopher  will  rejoice  to  find  in  this  pro- 
position a  point  of  reconciliation  between  the 
extramundane  God  of  pure  theism  and  the  cardi- 
nal principle  of  Spinozism,  the  immanence  of  Deity 
in  creation, —  a  principle  as  dear  to  the  philosophic 
mind  as  that  of  the  extramundane  Divinity  is  to  the 
theologian.  The  universe  of  Spinoza  is  a  self-exis- 
tent unit,  divine  in  itself,  but  with  no  Divinity  be- 
hind it ;  that  of  Leibniz  is  an  endless  series  of  units 
from  a  self-existent  and  divine  source.  The  one  is 
an  infinite  deep,  the  other  an  everlasting  flood. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Pre-estahlished  Harmony^ 
so  intimately  and  universally  associated  with  the 
name  of  Leibniz,  has  found  little  favor  with  his 
critics,  or   even  with    his    admirers.     Feuerbach 

1  Monadol.  47. 


GOTTFRIED  WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.    235 

calls  it  his  weak  side,  and  thinks  that  Leibniz's 
philosophy,  else  so  profound,  was  here,  as  in  other 
instances,  overshadowed  by  the  popular  creed ;  that 
he  accommodated  himself  to  theology  as  a  highly 
cultivated  and  intelligent  man,  conscious  of  his 
superiority,  accommodates  himself  to  a  lady  in  his 
conversation  with  her,  translating  his  ideas  into 
her  language,  and  even  paraphrasing  them.  From 
this  view  of  Leibniz,  as  implying  insincerity,  we 
utterly  dissent.  1  The  author  of  the  "  Theodicee" 
was  not  more  interested  in  philosophy  than  he  was 
in  theology ;  his  thoughts  and  his  purpose  did 
equal  justice  to  both.  The  deepest  wish  of  his 
heart  was  to  reconcile  them,  not  by  formal  treaty, 
but  in  loving  and  condign  union.  We  do  not,  how- 
ever, object  to  an  esoteric  and  exoteric  view  of  the 
doctrine  in  question ;  and  we  quite  agree  with  Feu- 
erbach  that  the  phrase  preetahlie  does  not  express 
a  metaphysical  determination ;  it  is  one  thing  to 
say  that  God,  by  an  arbitrary  decree  from  ever- 
lasting, has  so  predisposed  and  predetermined  every 
motion  in  the  world  of  matter  that  each  volition  of 

1  See,  in  connection  with  tliis  point,  two  admirable  essays  by 
Lessingr. —  the  one  entitled  :  Leibniz  on  Eternal  Punishment;  the 
other  :  Objections  of  Andreas  Wissowatius  to  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Trinit}-.  Of  the  latter  tlie  real  topic  is  Leibniz's  Defensio  Trini- 
tatis.  Tlie  sliarp  sighted  Lessing:,  than  whom  no  one  has  ex- 
pressed a  greater  reverence  for  Leibniz,  emphatically  asserts 
and  vigorously  defends  the  philosopher's  orthodoxy. 


236  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

a  rational  agent  finds  in  tlie  constant  procession  of 
physical  forces  a  concurrent  event  by  which  it  is 
executed,  but  which  would  have  taken  place  with- 
out his  volition,  just  as  the  mail-coach  takes  our 
letter,  if  we  have  one,  but  goes  all  the  same  when 
we  do  not  write,  —  this  is  the  gross,  exoteric  view, 
—  and  a  very  different  thing  it  is  to  say  that  the 
monads  composing  the  human  system  and  the  uni- 
verse of  things  are  so  related,  adjusted,  accommo- 
dated to  each  other  and  to  the  whole,  each  being 
a  representative  of  all  the  rest  and  a  mirror  of 
the  universe,  that  each  feels  all  that  passes  in  the 
rest,  and  all  conspire  in  every  act,i  more  or  less 
effectively,  in  the  ratio  of  their  nearness  to  the 
prime  agent.  This  is  Leibniz's  idea  of  pre-estab- 
lished harmony,  which  perhaps  would  be  better 
expressed  by  the  term    "  necessary  consent." 

"  In  the  ideas  of  God  each  monad  has  a  right  to  demand 
that  God,  in  regulating  the  rest  from  the  commencement  of 
things,  shall  have  regard  to  it ;  for  since  a  created  monad 
can  have  no  physical  influence  on  the  interior  of  another, 
it  is  only  by  this  means  that  one  can  be  dependent  on  an- 
other." "  The  soul  follows  its  own  laws,  and  the  body  fol- 
lows its  own  ;  and  they  meet  in  virtue  of  the  pre-established 
harmony  which  exists  between  all  substances,  as  represen- 
tatives of  one  and  the  same  universe.     Souls  act  according* 

1  In  this  connection  Leibniz  quotes  the  remarkable  saying 
of  Hippocrates,  Su/uTrj/ota  iravTo.,  —  the  universe  breathes  together, 
conspires.     Monadol.  61. 


GOTTFRIED  WILHELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     237 

to  the  laws  of  final  causes  by  appetitions,  etc.,  bodies  act 
according  to  the  laws  of  efficient  causes  or  the  laws  of 
■  motion  ;  and  the  two  kingdoms,  that  of  efficient  causes  and 
i  that  of  final  causes,  harmonize  with  each  other."  ^ 

The  Pre-established  Harmony,  then,  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  philosophic  statement  of  a  fact,  and 
not  as  a  theory  concerning  the  cause  of  the  fact. 
But,  like  all  philosophic  and  adequate  statements, 
it  answers  the  purpose  of  a  theory,  and  clears  up 
many  difficulties.  It  is  the  best  solution  we  know 
of  the  old  contradiction  of  free-will  and  fate, — 
individual  liberty  and  a  necessary  world.  This 
antithesis  disappears  in  the  light  of  the  Leibnitian 
philosophy,  which  resolves  freedom  and  necessity 
into  different  points  of  view  and  different  stages  of 
development.  The  principle  of  the  Pre-established 
•  Harmony  was  designed  by  Leibniz  to  meet  the 
difficulty,  started  by  Descartes,  of  explaining  the 
conformity  between  the  perceptions  of  the  mind 
and  the  corresponding  affections  of  the  body,  since 
mind  and  matter,  in  his  view,  could  have  no  con- 
nection with,  or  influence  on,  each  other.  The 
Cartesians  explained  this  correspondence  by  the 
theory  of  occasional  causes^  that  is,  by  the  interven- 
tion of  the  Deity,  who  was  supposed  by  his  arbi- 
trary will  to  have  decreed  a  certain  perception  or 
sensation  in  the  mind  to  go  with  a  certain  affection 
1  Monadol.  78,  79. 


238  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  the  body,  with  which,  however,  it  had  no  real 
connection.  "  Car  il "  (that  is,  M.  Bayle)  "  est 
persuade  avec  les  Cartesiens  modernes,  que  les 
idees  des  quahtes  sensibles  que  Dieu  donne,  selon 
eux,  a  Tame,  a  I'occasion  des  mouvemens  du  corps, 
n  out  rien  qui  represente  ces  mouvemens,  ou  qui 
leur  ressemble ;  de  sorte  qu'il  etoit  purement  arbi- 
traire  que  Dieu  nous  donnat  les  idees  de  la  cha- 
leur,  du  froid,  de  la  lumierc,  et  autres  que  nous 
expdrimentons,  ou  qu'il  nous  en  donnat  de  tout- 
autres  a  cette  meme  occasion."  ^  If  the  body  was 
exposed  to  the  flame,  there  was  no  more  reason, 
according  to  this  theory,  why  the  soul  should  be 
conscious  of  pain  than  of  pleasure,  except  that  God 
had  so  ordained.  Such  a  supposition  was  shoclving 
to  our  philosopher,  who  could  tolerate  no  arbitrari- 
ness in  God,  and  no  gap  or  discrepancy  in  Nature, 
and  who,  therefore,  sought  to  explain,  by  the  na- 
ture of  the  soul  itself  and  its  kindred  monads,  the 
correspondence  for  which  so  violent  an  hypothesis 
was  embraced  by  the  Cartesians. 

It  was  in  his  character  of  theosopher  that  he 
obtained  in  the  last  century  his  widest  fame.  The 
work  by  which  he  is  most  commonly  known,  by 
which  alone  lie  is  known  to  many,  is  the  ''  Theodi- 
c^e,"  —  an  attempt  to   vindicate   the  goodness  of 

1  Theodicee,  partie  ii.  340. 


GOTTFRIED  WILIIELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.    239 

God  against  the  cavils  of  unbelievers.  He  was  one 
of  the  first  to  apply  to  this  end  the  cardinal  princi- 
ple of  the  Lutheran  Reformation,  —  the  liberty  of 
reason.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  treat  unbelief, 
from  the  side  of  religion,  as  an  error  of  judgment, 
not  as  rebellion  against  rightful  authority.  The 
latter  was  and  is  the  Romanist  view.  The  former 
is  the  Protestant  theory,  but  was  not  then,  and  is 
not  always  now,  the  Protestant  practice.  Theol- 
ogy then  was  not  concerned  to  vindicate  the  reason 
or  the  goodness  of  God.  It  gloried  in  his  physical 
strength,  by  which  he  would  finally  crush  dissen- 
ters from  orthodoxy.  Leibniz  knew  no  authority  in- 
dependent of  Reason,  and  no  God  but  the  Supreme 
Reason  directing  Almighty  Good-will.  The  philo- 
sophic conclusion  justly  deducible  from  this  view 
of  God,  let  cavillers  say  what  they  will,  is  Optim- 
ism. Accordingly,  Optimism,  or  the  doctrine  of 
the  best  possible  world,  is  the  theory  of  the  "  The- 
odicee."  Our  limits  will  not  permit  us  to  analyze 
the  argument  of  this  remarkable  work.  Bunscn 
says  :  ''  It  necessarily  failed,  because  it  was  a  not 
quite  honest  compound  of  speculation  and  divin- 
ity." 1  Few  at  the  present  day  will  pretend  to  be 
entirely  satisfied  with  its  reasoning ;  but  all  who 
are  familiar  with  it  know  it  to  be  a  treasury  of 
wise  and  profound  thoughts  and  of  noble  senti- 
1  Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Universal  History,  vol  i.  chap.  6, 


240  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

merits  and  aspirations.  Bonnet,  the  naturalist, 
called  it  his  "Manual  of  Christian  Philosophy;" 
and  Fontenelle,  in  his  eulogy,  speaks  enthusiasti- 
cally of  its  luminous  and  sublime  views,  of  its 
reasonings,  in  which  the  mind  of  the  geometer  is 
always  apparent,  of  its  perfect  fairness  towards 
those  whom  it  controverts,  and  its  rich  store  of 
anecdote  and  illustration.  Even  Stewart,  who  was 
not  familiar  with  it,  and  who,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, strangely  misconceives  and  misrepresents 
the  author,  is  compelled  to  echo  the  general  senti- 
ment. He  pronounces  it  a  work  "  in  which  are 
combined  together  in  an  extraordinary  degree  the 
acuteness  of  the  logician,  the  imagination  of  the 
poet,  and  the  impenetrable  yet  sublime  darkness  of 
the  metaphysical  theologian."  The  italics  are  ours. 
Our  reason  for  doubting  Stewart's  familiarity  with 
the  "  Theodicee,"  and  with  Leibniz  in  general,  is 
derived  in  part  from  these  phrases.  We  do  not 
believe  that  any  sincere  student  of  LeilDuiz  has 
found  him  dark  and  impenetrable.  Be  it  a  merit 
or  a  fault,  this  predicate  is  inapplicable.  Never 
was  metaphysician  more  explicit  and  more  intel- 
ligible. Had  he  been  disposed  to  mysticize  and  to 
shroud  himself  in  ''  impenetrable  darkness,"  he 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  indulge  that  pro- 
pensity in  French.  Thanks  to  the  strict  regime 
and  happy  limitations  of  that  idiom,  the  French  is 


GOTTFRIED  WILHELM   VON  LEIBNIZ.    241 

not  a  language  in  which  philosophy  can  hide  itself. 
It  is  a  tight-fitting  coat,  wliich  shows  the  exact 
form,  or  want  of  form,  of  the  thought  it  clothes, 
without  pad  or  fold  to  simulate  fulness  or  to  veil 
defects.  It  was  a  Frenchman,  we  are  aware,  who 
discovered  that  "  the  use  of  language  is  to  con- 
ceal thought ; "  but  that  use,  so  far  as  French  is 
concerned,  has  been  hitherto  monopolized  by 
diplomacy. 

Another  reason  for  questioning  Stewart's  famil- 
iarity with  Leibniz  is  his  misconception  of  that 
author,  which  we  choose  to  impute  to  ignorance 
rather  than  to  wilfulness.  This  misconception  is 
strikingly  exemplified  in  a  prominent  point  of  Leib- 
nitian  philosophy.  Stewart  says :  "  Tlie  zeal  of 
Leibniz  in  propagating  the  dogma  of  Necessity 
is  not  easily  reconcilable  with  the  hostility  which 
he  uniformly  displays  against  the  congenial  doc- 
trine of  Materialism."  i  Now  it  happens  that 
"  the  zeal  of  Leibniz  "  was  exerted  in  precisely  the 
opposite  direction.  A  considerable  section  of  the 
"  Theodicee  "  (34-75)  is  occupied  with  the  illus- 
tration and  defence  of  the  Freedom  of  the  Will. 
It  was  a  doctrine  on  which  he  laid  great  stress, 
and  which  forms  an  essential  part  of  his  system  ;  ^ 

1  General  View  of  the  Prog,  of  Metaph.  Eth.  and  Polit.  Phil., 
p.  75.     Boston,  1822. 

2  "Nuniquam   Leibnitio  in  mentem  venisse   libertatera   velle 

16 


242  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  proof  of  which,  let  one  declaration  stand  for 
many  :  "  Je  suis  d' opinion  que  notre  volonte  n'est 
pas  seulement  exempte  de  la  contrainte,  mais 
encore  de  la  necessite."  How  far  he  succeeded  in 
establishing  that  doctrine  in  accordance  with  the 
rest  of  his  system  is  another  question.  That  he 
believed  it  and  taught  it  is  a  fact  of  which  there 
can  be  no  more  doubt  with  those  who  have  studied 
his  writings,  than  there  is  that  he  wrote  the  works 
ascribed  to  him.  But  the  freedom  of  will  main- 
tained by  Leibniz  was  not  indeterminism.  It  was 
not  the  indifference  of  the  tongue  of  the  balance 
between  equal  weights,  or  that  of  the  ass  between 
equal  bundles  of  hay.  •  Such  an  equilibrium  he 
declares  impossible.  "  Get  equilibre  en  tout  sens 
est  impossible."  Buridan's  imaghiary  case  of  the 
ass  is  a  fiction  "qui  ne  sauroit  avoir  lieu  dans 
I'univers."  ^  The  will  is  always  determined  by 
motives,  but  not  necessarily  constrained  by  them. 
This  is  his  doctrine,  emphatically  stated  and  zeal- 
ously maintained.  We  doubt  if  any  philosopher, 
equally  profound  and  equally  sincere,  will  ever  find 

evertere,  in  qua  defendenda  quam  maxime  fuit  occupatus,  omnia 
scripta,  precipue  autem  TheodicEea  ejus,  clamitant."  —  Kortholt, 
vol.  iv.  p.  12. 

1  Leibniz  seems  to  have  been  of  the  same  mind  with  Dante  : 

"  Intra  duo  cibi  distant!  e  moventi 
D'  un  modo,  prima  si  morria  di  fame 
Che  liber'  uomo  r  un  recasse  a'  denti." 
Farad,  iv.  1. 


GOTTFRIED   WILIIELM  VON  LEIBNIZ.     243 

room  in  his  conclusions  for  a  greater  measure  of 
moral  liberty  than  the  "  Theodicee  "  has  conceded 
to  man.  "  In  respect  to  this  matter,"  says  Arthur 
Schopenhauer,  "  the  great  thinkers  of  all  times  are 
agreed  and  decided,  just  as  surely  as  the  mass  of 
mankind  will  never  see  and  comprehend  the  great 
truth,  that  the  practical  operation  of  liberty  is  not 
to  be  sought  in  single  acts,  but  in  the  being  and 
nature  of  man."  ^  Leibniz's  construction  of  the 
idea  of  a  possible  liberty  consistent  with  the  pre- 
established  order  of  the  universe  is  substantially 
that  of  Schelling  in  his  celebrated  essay  on  this 
subject.  We  must  not  dwell  upon  it,  but  hasten 
to  conclude  our  imperfect  sketch. 

The  ground  idea  of  the  "  Theodicee  "  is  expressed/ 
in  the  phrase,  "Best  possible  world."     Evil  is    ai 
necessary  condition  of  finite  being ;   but  the  end  I 
of  creation  is  the  realization  of  the  greatest  possi-1 
ble  perfection  within  the  limits  of  the  finite.     The 
existing  universe  is  one  of   innumerable   possible 
universes,  each  of  which,  if  actualized,  would  have 
had   a   different  measure  of   good  and  evil.     The 
present,  rather  than  any  other,  was  made  actual, 
as  presenting  to  Divine  Intelligence  the  smallest 
measure  of  evil  and  the  greatest  amount  of  good. 
This   idea    is    happily    embodied    in    the    closing 

1  Ueber  den  Willen  in  der    Natur.,  p.  22.    Frankfurt  a.  M., 
1854. 


244  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

apologue,  designed  to  supplement  one  of  Laurentius 
Yalla,  a  writer  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Theodo- 
rus,  priest  of  Zeus  at  Dodona,  demands  why  that 
god  has  permitted  to  Sextus  the  'evil  will  which 
was  destined  to  bring  so  much  misery  on  himself 
and  others.  Zeus  refers  him  to  his  daughter 
Athene.  He  goes  to  Athens,  is  commanded  to 
lie  down  in  the  temple  of  Pallas,  and  is  there  vis- 
ited with  a  dream.  The  vision  takes  him  to  the 
Palace  of  Destinies,  which  contains  the  plans  of  all 
possible  worlds.  He  examines  one  plan  after  ano- 
ther ;  in  each  the  same  Sextus  plays  a  different 
part  and  experiences  a  different  fate.  The  plans 
improve  as  he  advances,  till  at  last  he  comes  upon 
one  whose  superior  excellence  enchants  him  with 
delight.  After  revelling  awhile  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  this  perfect  world,  he  is  told  that  this  is 
the  actual  world  in  which  he  lives.  But  in  this 
the  crime  of  Sextus  is  a  necessary  constituent ;  it 
could  not  be  what  it  is  as  a  whole,  were  it  other 
than  it  is  in  its  single  parts. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Leibniz's  success  in 
demonstrating  his  favorite  doctrine,  the  theory  of 
Optimism  commends  itself  to  piety  and  reason  as 
that  view  of  human  and  divine  tilings  which  most 
redounds  to  the  glory  of  God  and  best  expresses 
the  hope  of  man  ;  as  the  noblest,  and  therefore  the 
truest,  theory  of  divine  rule  and  human  destiny. 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         245 

We  recall  at  this  moment  but  one  English  writer 
of  supreme  .mark  who  has  held  and  promulged,  in 
its  fullest  extent,  the  theory  of  Optimism.  That 
one  is  a  poet.  The  "  Essay  on  Man,"  with  one  or 
two  exceptions,  might  almost  pass  for  a  paraphrase 
of  the  ''  Theodicee  ;  "  and  Pope,  with  characteristic 
vigor,  has  concentrated  the  meaning  of  that  trea- 
tise in  one  word,  which  is  none  the  less  true,  in  the 
sense  intended,  because  of  its  possible  perversion, 
— "  Whatever  is  is  right." 


THE  MONADOLOGY   OF  LEIBNIZ. 

[From  the  French.] 

1.  The  Monad,  of  which  we  shall  here  speak, 
is  merely  a  simple  substance  entering  into  those 
which  are  compound ;  simple,  that  is  to  say,  with- 
out parts. 

2.  And  there  must  be  simple  substances,  since 
there  are  compounds ;  for  the  compound  is  only  a 
collection  or  aggregate  of  simples. 

3.  Where  there  are  no  parts,  neither  extension, 
nor  figure,  nor  divisibility  is  possible ;  and  these 
Monads  are  the  veritable  Atoms  of  Nature,  —  in 
one  word,  the  Elements  of  things. 

4.  There  is  thus  no  danger  of  dissolution,  and 


246  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

there   is   no    conceivable    way  in   which   a  simple 
substance  can  perish   naturally. 

5.  For  the  same  reason,  there  is  no  way  in  which 
a  simple  substance  can  begin  naturally,  since  it 
could  not  be  formed  by  composition. 

6.  Therefore  we  may  say  that  the  Monads  can 
neither  begin  nor  end  in  any  other  way  than  all 
at  once  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  cannot  begin  except 
by  creation,  nor  end  except  by  annihilation  ;  where- 
as that  which  is  compounded,  begins  and  ends  by 
parts. 

7.  There  is  also  no  intelligible  way  in  which  a 
Monad  can  be  altered  or  changed  in  its  interior  by 
any  other  creature,  since  it  would  be  impossible  to 
transpose  anything  in  it,  or  to  conceive  in  it  any 
internal  movement  —  any  movement  excited,  direc- 
ted, augmented,  or  diminished  within,  such  as  may 
take  place  in  compound  bodies,  where  there  is 
change  of  parts.  The  Monads  have  no  windows 
through  which  anything  can  enter  or  go  forth.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  any  accidents  to  detach 
themselves  and  go  forth  from  the  substances,  as 
did  formerly  the  Sensible  Species  of  the  school- 
men. Accordingly,  neither  substance  nor  accident 
can  enter  a  Monad  from  without. 

8.  Nevertheless  Monads  must  have  qualities, 
otherwise  the}"  would  not  even  be  entities ;  and  if 
simple  substances  did  not  differ  in  their  qualities, 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         247 

there  would  be  no  means  by  which  we  could 
become  aware  of  the  changes  of  things,  since  all 
that  is  in  compound  bodies  is  derived  from  simple 
ingredients ;  and  Monads,  being  without  qualities, 
would  be  indistinguishable  one  from  another, 
seeing  also  they  do  not  differ  in  quantity.  Conse- 
quently, a  plenum  being  supposed,  each  place  could 
in  any  movement  receive  only  the  just  equivalent 
of  what  it  had  had  before,  and  one  state  of  things 
would  be  indistinguishable  from  another. 

9.  Moreover,  each  Monad  must  differ  from  every 
other,  for  there  are  never  two  beings  in  nature 
perfectly  alike,  and  in  wliich  it  is  impossible  to 
find  an  internal  difference,  or  one  founded  on  some 
h)  trinsic  denomination. 

10.  I  take  it  for  granted,  furthermore,  that  every 
created  being  is  subject  to  change,  —  consequently, 
the  created  Monad  ;  and  likewise  that  this  change 
is  continual  in  each. 

11.  It  follows,  from  what  we  have  now  said, 
that  the  natural  changes  of  Monads  proceed  from 
an  internal  principle,  since  no  external  cause  can 
influence  the  interior. 

12.  But,  besides  the  principle  of  change,  there 
must  also  be  a  detail  of  changes,  embracing,  so 
to  speak,  the  specification  and  the  variety  of  the 
simple  substances. 

13.  This  detail  must  invofve  multitude  in  unity 


248  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

or  in  simplicit}^ :  for  as  all  natural  changes  proceed 
by  degrees,  something  changes  and  something 
remains;  and  consequently  there  must  be  in  the 
simple  substance  a  plurality  of  affections  and 
relations,  although   there   are   no    parts. 

14.  This  shifting  state,  which  involves  and  re- 
presents multitude  in  unity,  or  in  the  simple 
substance,  is  nothing  else  than  what  we  call  Per- 
ception, which  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
apperception.)  or  consciousness,  as  will  appear  in 
the  sequel.  Here  it  is  that  the  Cartesians  have 
especially  failed,  making  no  account  of  those  per- 
ceptions of  which  we  are  not  conscious.  It  is  this 
that  has  led  them  to  suppose  that  spirits  are  the 
only  Monads,  and  that  there  are  no  souls  of  brutes 
or  other  Entelecliies.  It  is  owing  to  this  that  they 
have  vulgarly  confounded  protracted  torpor  with 
actual  death,  and  have  fallen  in  with  the  scholastic 
prejudice,  which  believes  in  souls  entirely  separate. 
Hence,  also,  ill-affected  minds  have  been  confirmed 
in  the  opinion  that  the  soul  is  mortal. 

15.  The  action  of  the  internal  principle  which 
causes  the  change,  or  the  passage  from  one  percep- 
tion to  another,  may  be  called  Appetition.  It  is 
true,  the  desire  cannot  always  completely  attain  to 
every  perception  to  which  it  tends,  but  it  always 
attains  to  something  thereof,  and  arrives  at  new 
perceptions. 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         249 

16.  We  experience  in  ourselves  the  fact  of  multi- 
tude in  the  simple  substance  when  we  find  that 
the  least  thought  of  which  we  are  conscious  in- 
cludes a  variety  in  its  object.  Accordingly,  all 
who  admit  that  the  soul  is  a  simple  substance  are 
bound  to  admit  this  multitude  in  the  Monad ;  and 
Mr.  Bayle  should  not  have  found  any  difficulty  in 
this  admission,  as  he  has  done  in  his  Dictionary 
(art.  Rorarius). 

17.  Besides,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Percep- 
tion and  its  consequences  are  inexplicable  by  me- 
chanical causes ;  that  is  to  say,  by  figures  and 
motions.  If  we  imagine  a  machine  so  constructed 
as  to  produce  thought,  sensation,  perception,  we 
may  conceive  it  magnified  —  the  same  proportions 
being  preserved  —  to  such  an  extent  that  one 
might  enter  it  like  a  mill.  This  being  supposed, 
we  should  find  in  it  on  inspection  only  pieces 
which  impel  each  other,  but  nothing  which  can 
explain  a  perception.  It  is  in  the  simple  sub- 
stance, therefore,  —  not  in  the  compound,  or  in 
machinery,  —  that  we  must  look  for  that  phenome- 
non ;  and  in  the  simple  substance  we  find  nothing 
else,  —  nothing,  that  is,  but  perceptions  and  their; 
changes.  Therein  also,  and  therein  only,  consist' 
all  the   internal  acts  of  simple  substances. 

18.  We  might  give  the  name  of  Entelechies  to 
all  simple  substances  or  created  Monads,  inasmuch 


250  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

as  there  is  in  them  a  certain  completeness  (perfec- 
tion), (^exovcro  to  eVreXe?).  There  is  a  sufficiency 
(^avrdpKeia)  which  makes  them  the  sources  of  their 
own  internal  actions,  and,  as  it  were,  incorporeal 
automata. 

19.  If  we  choose  to  give  the  name  of  soul  to  all 
that  has  perceptions  and  desires,  in  the  general 
sense  which  1  have  just  indicated,  all  simple  sub- 
stances or  created  Monads  may  be  called  souls. 
But  as  sentiment  is  something  more  tlian  simple 
perception,  I  am  willing  that  the  general  name  of 
Monads  and  Entelechies  shall  suffice  for  those 
simple  substances  which  have  nothing  but  percep- 
tions, and  that  the  term  souls  shall  be  confined  to 
those  whose  perceptions  are  more  distinct,  and 
accompanied  by  memory. 

20.  For  we  experience  in  ourselves  a  state  in 
which  we  remember  nothing,  and  have  no  distinct 
perception,  as  when  we  are  in  a  swoon,  or  in  a  pro- 
found and  dreamless  sleep.  In  this  state  the  soul 
does  not  differ  sensibly  from  a  simple  Monad ;  but 
since  this  state  is  not  permanent,  and  since  the  soul 
delivers  herself  from  it,  she  is  something  more. 

21.  And  it  does  not  by  any  means  follow,  in  that 
case,  that  the  simple  substance  is  without  percep- 
tion,—  that,  indeed,  is  impossible,  for  the  reasons 
given  above  ;  for  it  cannot  perish,  neither  can  it 
subsist  without  affection   of   some  kind,  which  is 


THE   MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         251 

nothing  else  than  its  perception.  But  where  there 
is  a  great  number  of  minute  perceptions,  and 
where  nothing  is  distinct,  one  is  stunned,  as  Avhen 
we  turn  round  and  round  in  continual  succession 
in  the  same  direction ;  whence  arises  a  vertigo, 
which  may  cause  us  to  faint,  and  which  prevents 
us  from  distinguishing  anything.  And  possibly 
death  may  produce  this  state  for  a  time  in  animals. 

22.  And  as  every  present  condition  of  a  simple 
substance  is  a  natural  consequence  of  its  antece- 
dent condition,  so  its  present  is  big  with  its  future. 

23.  Then  as,  on  awaking  from  a  state  of  stupor, 
we  become  conscious  of  our  perceptions,  we  must 
have  had  perceptions,  although  unconscious  of 
them,  immediately  before  awaking.  For  each  per- 
ception can  have  no  other  natural  origin  but  an 
antecedent  perception,  as  every  motion  must  be 
derived  from  one  which  preceded  it. 

24.  Thus  it  appears  that  if  there  were  no  distinc- 
tion —  no  relief,  so  to  speak  —  no  enhanced  flavor 
in  our  perceptions,  we  should  continue  forever  in  a 
state  of  stupor;  and  this  is  the  condition  of  the 
naked  Monad. 

25.  And  so  we  see  that  Nature  has  given  to  ani- 
mals enhanced  perceptions,  by  the  care  which  she 
has  taken  to  furnish  them  with  organs  which  col- 
lect many  rays  of  light  and  many  undulations  of 
air,  increasing  their  efficacy  by  their  union.     There 


252  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  something  approaching  to  this  in  odor,  in  taste, 
in  touch,  and  perhaps  in  a  multitude  of  other  senses 
of  which  we  have  no  knowledge.  I  shall  presently 
explain  how  that  which  passes  in  the  soul  represents 
that  which  takes  place  in  the  organs. 

26.  Memory  gives  to  the  soul  a  kind  of  consecu- 
tive action  which  imitates  reason,  but  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  it.  We  observe  that  animals, 
having  a  perception  of  something  which  strikes 
them,  and  of  which  they  have  previously  had  a  sim- 
ilar perception,  expect,  through  the  representation 
of  their  memory,  the  recurrence  of  that  which  was 
associated  with  it  in  their  previous  perception, 
and  incline  to  the  same  feelings  which  they  then 
had.  For  example,  when  we  show  dogs  the  cane, 
they  remember  the  pain  which  it  caused  them,  and 
whine  and  run. 

27.  And  the  lively  imagination  which  strikes 
and  excites  them  arises  from  the  magnitude  or 
the  multitude  of  their  previous  perceptions.  For 
often  a  powerful  impression  produces  suddenly  the 
effect  of  long  habit,  or  of  moderate  perceptions 
often  repeated. 

28.  In  men,  as  in  brutes,  the  consecutiveness  of 
their  perceptions  is  due  to  the  principle  of  memory, 
—  like  empirics  in  medicine,  who  have  only  prac- 
tice without  theory.  And  we  are  mere  empirics  in 
three  fourths  of  our  acts.     For  example,  when  we 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         253 

expect  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow,  we  judge 
so  empirically,  because  it  has  always  risen  hitherto. 
Only  the  astronomer  judges  by  an  act  of  reason. 

29.  But  the  cognition  of  necessary  and  eternal 
truths  is  that  which  distinguishes  us  from  mere 
animals.  It  is  tliis  which  gives  us  Reason  and 
Science,  and  raises  us  to  the  knowledge  of  our- 
selves and  of  God ;  and  it  is  this  in  us  which  we 
call  a  reasonable  soul  or  spirit. 

30.  It  is  also  by  the  cognition  of  necessary 
truths,  and  by  their  abstractions,  that  we  rise  to 
acts  of  reflection,  which  give  us  the  idea  of  that 
which  calls  itself  "  I,"  and  which  lead  us  to  con- 
sider that  this  or  that  is  in  us.  And  thus,  while 
thinking  of  ourselves,  we  think  of  Being,  of  sub- 
stance, simple  or  compound,  of  the  immaterial,  and 
of  God  himself.  We  conceive  that  that  which  in 
us  is  limited,  is  in  him  without  limit.  And  these 
reflective  acts  furnish  the  principal  objects  of  our 
reasonings. 

31.  Our  reasonings  are  founded  on  two  great 
principles,  that  of  Contradiction^  by  virtue  of  which 
we  judge  that  to  be  false  which  involves  contradic- 
tion, and  that  to  be  true  which  is  opposed  to,  or 
which  contradicts,  the  false. 

32.  And  that  of  the  Sufficient  Reason^  by  virtue 
of  which  we  judge  that  no  fact  can  be  real  or  exis- 
tent, no  statement  true,  unless  there  be  a  sufficient 


254  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

reason  why  it  is  thus,  and  not.  otherwise,  although 
these  reasons  very  often  cannot  be  known  to  us. 

33.  There  are  also  two  sorts  of  truths  —  those  of 
reasoning  and  those  of  fact.  Truths  of  reasoning 
are  necessary,  and  their  opposite  is  impossible ; 
those  of  fact  are  contingent,  and  their  opposite  is 
possible.  When  a  truth  is  necessary,  we  may  dis- 
cover the  reason  of  it  by  analysis,  resolving  it  into 
simpler  ideas  and  truths,  until  we  arrive  at  those 
which  are  ultimate.^ 

34.  It  is  thus  that  mathematicians  by  analysis 
reduce  speculative  theorems  and  practical  canons 
to  definitions,  axioms,  and  postulates. 

35.  And,  finally,  there  are  simple  ideas,  of  which 
no  definition  can  be  given ;  there  are  also  axioms 
and  postulates,  —  in  one  word,  ultimate  ^  ^:)?'mc/p?es, 
which  cannot  and  need  not  be  proved.  And  these 
are  "  Identical  Propositions,"  of  which  the  opposite 
contains  an  express  contradiction. 

36.  But  there  must  also  be  a  sufficient  reason 
for  truths  contingent  or  truths  of  fact,  —  that  is, 
for  the  series  of  things  diffused  through  the  uni- 
verse of  creatures,  —  or  else  the  process  of  resolv- 
ing into  particular  reasons  might  run  into  a  detail 
without  bounds,  on  account  of  the  immense  variety 
of  the  things  of  nature,  and  of  the  infinite  division 
of  bodies.     There  is  an  infinity  of  figures  and  of 

1  Primitifs. 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         255 

movements,  present  and  past,  which  enter  into  the 
efficient  cause  of  my  present  writing  ;  and  there  is 
an  infinity  of  minute  inclinations  and  dispositions 
of  my  soul,  present  and  past,  which  enter  into  the 
final  cause  of  it. 

37.  And  as  all  this  detail  only  involves  other 
anterior  or  more  detailed  contingencies,  each  one 
of  which  again  requires  a  similar  analysis  in  order 
to  account  for  it,  we  have  made  no  advance,  and 
the  sufficient  or  final  reason  must  be  outside  of 
the  series  of  this  detail  of  contingencies,^  endless 
as  it  may  be. 

38.  And  thus  the  final  reason  of  things  must 
be  found  in  a  necessary  Substance,  in  which  the 
detail  of  changes  exists  eminently  as  their  source. 
And  this  is  that  which  we  call  God. 

39.  Now  this  Substance  being  a  sufficient  rea- 
son of  all  this  detail,  which  also  is  everywhere 
linked  together,  they^e  is  hut  one  God,,  and  this 
Crod  suffices. 

40.  We  may  also  conclude  that  this  supreme 
Substance,  wdiich  is  Only ,2  Universal,  and  Neces- 
sary,—  having  nothing  outside  of  it  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  if,  and  being  a  simple  series  of  possible 
beings,  —  must  be  incapable  of  limits,  and  must 
contain  as  much  of  reality  as  is  possible. 

41.  Whence  it  follows  that  God  is  perfect,  per- 

1  That  is,  accidental  causes.  2  Unique. 


1 


256  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

fection  being  nothing  but  the  magnitude  of  positive 
reality  taken  exactly,  setting  aside  the  limits  or 
hounds  in  that  whicli  is  limited.  And  there,  where 
there  are  no  bounds,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  God, — 
perfection  is  absolutely  infinite. 

42.  It  follows,  also,  that  the  creatures  have  their 
perfections  from  the  influence  of  God ;  but  they 
have  their  imperfections  from  their  proper  nature, 
incapable  of  existing  without  bounds ;  for  it  is  by 
this  that  they  are  distinguished  from  God. 

43.  It  is  true,  moreover,  that  God  is  not  only 
the  source  of  existences,  but  also  of  essences,  so 
far  as  real,  or  of  that  whicli  is  real  in  the  possible ; 
because  the  divine  understanding  is  the  region  of 
eternal  truths,  or  of  the  ideas  on  which  they  de- 
pend, and  witliout  him  there  would  be  nothing  real 
in  the  possibilities,  and  not  only  nothing  existing, 
but  also  nothing  possible. 

44.  At  the  same  time,  if  there  be  a  reality  in 
the  essences  or  possibilities,  or  in  the  eternal 
truths,  this  reality  must  be  founded  in  something 
existing  and  actual,  consequently  in  the  existence 
of  the  necessary  Being,  in  whom  essence  includes 
existence,  or  with  whom  it  is  sufficient  to  be  pos- 
sible in  order  to  be  actual. 

45.  Thus  God  alone  (or  the  necessary  Being) 
possesses  this  privilege,  that  he  must  exist  if  pos- 
sible ;  and  since  nothing  can  hinder  the  possibility 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         257 

of  that  which  inckides  no  bounds,  no  negation, 
and  consequently  no  contradiction,  that  alone  is 
sufficient  to  establish  the  existence  of  God  a  priori. 
We  have  likewise  proved  it  by  the  reality  of  eternal 
truths.  But  we  have  also  just  proved  it  a  posteriori 
by  showing  that,  since  contingent  beings  exist, 
they  can  have  their  ultimate  and  sufficient  reason 
only  in  some  necessary  Being,  who  contains  the 
reason  of  his  existence  in  himself. 

46.  Nevertheless,  we  must  not  suppose,  with 
some,  that  eternal  verities,  being  dependent  upon 
God,  are  arbitrary,  and  depend  upon  his  will,  as 
Descartes,  and  afterwards  M.  Poiret,  appear  to  have 
conceived.  This  is  true  only  of  contingent  truths, 
the  principle  of  which  is  fitness,  or  the  choice  of 
the  best;  whereas  necessary  truths  depend  solely 
on  his  understanding,  and  are  its  internal  object. 

47.  Thus  God  alone  is  the  primitive  Unity,  or 
the  simple  original  substance  of  which  all  the 
created  or  derived  Monads  are  the  products  ;  and 
they  are  generated,  so  to  speak,  by  continual  ful- 
gurations  of  the  Divinity,  from  moment  to  moment, 
bounded  by  the  receptivity  of  the  creature,  of  whose 
existence  limitation  is  an  essential  condition. 

48.  In  God  is  Power,  which  is  the  source  of 
all ;  then  Knowledge,  which  contains  the  detail  of 
Ideas ;  and,  finally,  Will,  which  generates  changes 
or  products  according  to  the  principle  of  optimism. 

17 


258  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

And  this  answers  to  what,  in  created  Monads,  con- 
stitutes the  subject  or  the  basis,  the  perceptive  and 
the  appetitive  fa  cult  v.  But  in  God  these  attributes 
are  absolutely  infinite  or  perfect,  and  in  the  cre- 
ated Monads  or  in  the  Entelechies  (or  j^erfectiha- 
hiisy  as  Hermolaus  Barbaras  translates  this  word), 
they  are  only  imitations  according  to  the  measure 
of  their  perfection. 

49.  The  creature  is  said  to  act  externally  in  so 
far  as  it  possesses  perfection,  and  to  suffer  from 
another  (creature)  so  far  as  it  is  imperfect.  So 
we  ascribe  action  to  the  Monad  so  far  as  it  has 
distinct  perceptions,  and  passion  so  far  as  its 
perceptions  are  confused. 

50.  And  one  creature  is  more  perfect  than  an- 
other in  this :  that  we  find  in  it  that  which  serves 
to  account  a  jjriori  for  what  passes  in  the  other ; 
and  it  is  therefore  said  to  act  upon  the  other. 

51.  But  in  simple  substances  this  is  merely  an 
ideal  influence  of  one  Monad  upon  another,  which 
can  pass  into  effect  only  by  the  intervention  of 
God,  inasmuch  as  in  the  ideas  of  God  one  Monad 
has  a  right  to  demand  that  God,  in  regulating  the 
rest  from  the  commencement  of  things,  shall  have 
regard  to  it;  for  since  a  created  Monad  can  have 
no  physical  influence  on  the  interior  of  another, 
it  is  only  by  this  means  that  one  can  be  dependent 
on  another. 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         259 

52.  And  hence  it  is  that  actions  and  passions 
in  creatures  are  mutual ;  for  God,  comparing  two 
simple  substances,  finds  reasons  in  each  which 
oblige  him  to  accommodate  the  one  to  the  other. 
Consequently  that  which  is  active  in  one  view  is 
passive  in  another,  —  active  so  far  as  what  we 
clearly  discern  in  it  serves  to  account  for  that 
which  takes  place  in  another,  and  passive  so  far 
as  the  reason  of  that  which  passes  in  it  is  found 
in  that  which  is  clearly  discerned  in  another. 

53.  Now  as  in  the  ideas  of  God  there  is  an 
infinity  of  possible  worlds,  and  as  only  one  can 
exist,  there  must  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  the 
choice  of  God,  which  determines  him  to  one 
rather  than  another. 

54.  And  this  reason  can  be  no  other  than  fit- 
ness,  derived  from  the  different  degrees  of  perfec-  | 
tion    which    these    worlds    contain,   each    possible           ^ 
world  having  a  claim  to   exist   according  to  the 
measure  of  perfection  which  it  enfolds, 

bb.  And  this  is  the  cause  of  the  existence  of  that 
Best  which  the  wisdom  of  God  discerns,  which  his 
goodness  chooses,  and  his  power  effects. 

56.  And  this  connection,  or  this  accommodation 
of  all  created  things  to  each,  and  of  each  to  all, 
implies  in  each  simple  substance  relations  which 
express  all  the  rest.  Each,  accordingly,  is  a  liv- 
ing and  perpetual  mirror  of  the  universe. 


260  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

57.  And  as  the  same  city  viewed  from  different 
sides  appears  quite  different,  and  is  perspectively 
multiplied,  so,  in  the  infinite  multitude  of  simple 
substances,  there  are  given,  as  it  were,  so  many 
different  worlds,  which  yet  are  only  the  perspec- 
tives of  a  single  one,  according  to  the  different 
points  of  view  of  each  Monad. 

58.  And  this  is  the  way  to  obtain  the  greatest 
possible  variety  with  the  greatest  possible  order,  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  way  to  obtain  the  greatest  pos- 
sible perfection. 

59.  Thus  this  hypothesis  (which  I  may  venture 
to  pronounce  demonstrated)  is  the  only  one  which 
properly  exhibits  the  greatness  of  God.  And  this 
Mr.  Bayle  acknowledges  when  in  his  Dictionary 
(art.  Borarius)  he  objects  to  it.  He  is  even  dis- 
posed to  think  that  I  attribute  too  much  to  God, 
that  I  ascribe  to  him  impossibilities  ;  but  he  can 
allege  no  reason  for  the  impossibility  of  this  uni- 
versal harmony,  by  which  each  substance  expresses 
exactly  the  perfections  of  all  the  rest  through  its 
relations  with  them. 

60.  We  see,  moreover,  in  that  which  I  have  just 
stated,  the  a  priori  reasons  why  things  could  not 
be  other  than  they  are.  God,  in  ordering  the 
whole,  has  respect  to  each  part,  and  specifically  to 
each  Monad,  whose  nature  being  representative,  is 
by  nothing  restrained  from  representing  the  whole 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.        261 

of  things  ;  although,  it  is  true,  this  representation 
must  needs  be  confused,  as  it  regards  the  detail  of 
the  universe,  and  can  be  distinct  only  in  relation  to 
a  small  part  of  tilings,  that  is,  in  relation  to  those 
which  are  nearest,  or  w  hose  relations  to  any  given 
Monad  are  greatest.  Otherwise  each  Monad  would 
be  a  divinity.  The  Monads  are  limited,  not  in  the 
object,  but  in  the  mode  of  their  knowledge  of  the 
object.  They  all  tend  confusedly  to  the  infinite,  to 
the  whole  ;  but  they  are  limited  and  distinguished 
by  the  degrees  of  distinctness  in  their  perceptions. 

61.  And  compounds  symbolize  in  this  with  sim- 
ples. For  since  the  world  is  a  plenum.,  and  all 
matter  connected  ;  and  as  in  a  ^jlenum  every  move- 
ment has  some  effect  on  distant  bodies,  in  propor- 
tion to  their  distance,  so  that  each  body  is  affected 
not  only  by  those  in  actual  contact  with  it,  and 
feels  in  some  way  all  that  happens  to  them,  but 
also  through  their  means  is  affected  by  others  in 
contact  with  those  by  which  it  is  immediately 
touched,  —  it  follows  that  this  communication  ex- 
tends to  any  distance.  Consequently,  eacli  body 
feels  all  that  passes  in  the  universe,  so  that  he  who 
sees  all,  may  read  in  each  that  which  passes  every- 
where else,  and  even  that  which  has  been  and 
shall  be,  discerning  in  the  present  that  which  is 
removed  in  time  as  well  as  in  space.  Ilvfiiriwiec 
Traz/ra,  says  Hippocrates.     But  each  soul  can  read 


262  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  itself  only  that  which  is  distinctly  represented  in 
it.  It  cannot  unfold  its  laws  at  once,  for  they 
reach  into  the  infinite. 

62.  Thus,  though  every  created  Monad  represents 
the  entire  universe,  it  represents  more  distinctly 
the  particular  body  to  which  it  belongs,  and  whose 
Entelechy  it  is ;  and  as  this  body  expresses  the 
entire  universe,  through  the  connection  of  all  mat- 
ter in  a  plenum,  the  soul  represents  also  the  entire 
universe  in  representing  that  body  which  especially 
belongs  to  it. 

63.  The  body  belonging  to  a  Monad,  which  is  its 
Entelecliy  or  soul,  constitutes,  with  its  Entelechy, 
what  may  be  termed  a  living  (thing),  and,  with 
its  soul,  what  may  be  called  an  animal.  And  the 
body  of  a  living  being  or  of  an  animal  is  always 
organic;  for  every  Monad,  being  a  mirror  of  the 
universe,  according  to  its  fashion,  and  the  universe 
being  arranged  with  perfect  order,  there  must  be 
the  same  order  in  the  representative,  —  that  is,  in 
the  perceptions  of  the  soul,  and  consequently  of  the 
body  according  to  which  the  universe  is  represented 
in  it. 

64.  Thus  each  organic  living  body  is  a  species  of 
divine  machine,  or  a  natural  automaton,  infinitely 
surpassing  all  artificial  automata.  A  machine 
made  by  human  art  is  not  a  machine  in  all  its 
parts.     For  example,  the  tooth  of  a  brass  wheel 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         263 

has  parts  or  fragments  which  are  not  artificial  to 
us  ;  they  have  nothing  which  marks  the  machine 
in  their  relation  to  the  use  for  which  the  Avheel  is 
designed ;  but  natural  machines  —  that  is,  living 
bodies  —  are  still  machines  in  their  minutest  parts, 
ad  infinitum.  This  makes  the  difference  between 
nature  and  art ;  that  is  to  say,  between  the  divine 
art  and  ours. 

Qb.  And  the  Author  of  Nature  was  able  to 
exercise  this  divine  and  infinitely  wonderful  art, 
inasmuch  as  every  portion  of  nature  is  not  only 
infinitely  divisible,  as  the  ancients  knew,  but  is 
actually  subdivided  without  end ;  each  part  into 
parts,  of  which  each  has  its  own  movement. 
Otherwise  it  would  be  impossible  that  each  por- 
tion of  matter  should  express  the  universe. 

QQ.  Whence  it  appears  that  there  is  a  world  of 
creatures,  of  living  (things),  of  animals,  of  En- 
telechies,  of  souls,  in  the  minutest  portion  of 
matter. 

67.  Every  particle  of  matter  may  be  conceived 
as  a  garden  of  plants  or  as  a  pond  full  of  fishes. 
But  each  branch  of  each  plant,  each  member  of 
each  animal,  each  drop  of  their  humors,  is  in 
turn  another  such  garden  or  pond. 

68.  And  although  the  earth  and  the  air  embraced 
between  the  plants  in  the  garden,  or  the  water 
between  the  fishes  of  the  pond,  are  not  themselves 


264  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

plant  or  fish,  they  nevertlieless  contain  such,  but 
mostly  too  minute  for  our  perception. 

69.  So  there  is  no  uncultured  spot,  no  barren- 
ness, no  death  in  the  universe  —  no  chaos,  no  con- 
fusion, except  in  appearance,  as  it  might  seem  in 
a  pond  at  a  distance,  in  which  one  should  see  a 
confused  motion  and  swarming,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
fishes  of  the  pond,  without  distinguishing  the  fishes 
themselves. 

70.  We  see,  then,  that  each  living  body  has  a 
governing  Entelechy,  which  in  animals  is  the  soul 
of  the  animal.  But  the  members  of  this  living 
body  are  full  of  other  living  bodies,  —  plants,  ani- 
mals, —  each  of  which  has  its  Entelechy,  or  regent 
soul. 

71.  We  must  not,  however,  suppose  —  as  some 
who  misapprehended  my  thought  have  done  — that 
each  soul  has  a  mass  or  portion  of  matter  proper 
to  itself,  or  forever  united  to  it,  and  that  it  conse- 
quently possesses  other  inferior  living  existences, 
destined  forever  to  its  service.  For  all  bodies  are 
in  a  perpetual  flux,  like  rivers ;  their  particles  are 
continually  coming  and  going. 

72.  Thus  the  soul  does  not  change  its  body  ex- 
cept by  degrees.  It  is  never  deprived  at  once  of 
all  its  organs.  There  are  often  metamorphoses  in 
animals,  but  never  metempsychosis,  —  no  transmi- 
gration of  souls.     Neither  are  there  souls  entirely 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         265 

separated  (from  bodies),  nor  genii  without  bodies. 
God  alone  is  wholly  without  body. 

73.  For  which  reason,  also,  there  is  never  com- 
plete generation  nor  perfect  death,  —  strictly  con- 
sidered,—  consisting  in  the  separation  of  the  soul. 
That  which  we  call  generation  is  development 
and  accretion ;  and  that  which  we  call  death  is 
envelopment  and  diminution. 

74.  Philosophers  have  been  much  troubled  about 
the  origin  of  forms,  of  Entelechies,  or  souls.  But 
at  the  present  day,  when  by  accurate  investigations 
of  plants,  insects,  and  animals,  they  have  become 
aware  that  the  organic  bodies  of  nature  are  never 
prbduced  from  chaos  or  from  putrefaction,  but 
always  from  seed,  in  which  undoubtedly  there  had 
hQQu  d,  preformation, — it  has  been  inferred  that  not 
only  the  organic  body  existed  in  that  seed  before 
conception,  but  also  a  soul  in  that  body,  —  in  one 
word,  the  animal  itself,  —  and  that,  by  the  act  of 
conception,  this  animal  is  merely  disposed  to  a 
grand  transformation,  to  become  an  animal  of 
another  species.  We  even  see  something  approach- 
ing this  outside  of  generation,  as  when  worms  be- 
come flies,  or  when  caterpillars  become  butterflies. 

75.  Those  animals  of  which  some  are  advanced 
to  a  higher  grade  by  means  of  conception,  may  be 
called  spermatic;  but  those  among  them  which 
remain  in  their  kind — that  is  to  say,  the  greater 


266  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 

portion  —  are  born,  multiply,  and  are  destroyed, 
like  the  larger  animals,  and  only  a  small  num- 
ber of  the  elect  among  them  pass  to  a  grander 
theatre. 

76.  But  this  is  only  half  the  truth.  I  have  con- 
cluded that  if  the  animal  does  not  begin  to  be  in 
the  order  of  nature,  it  also  does  not  cease  to  be 
in  the  order  of  nature,  and  that  not  only  there  is 
no  generation,  but  no  entire  destruction,  —  no  death, 
strictly  considered.  And  these  a  2?osteriori  conclu- 
sions, drawn  from  experience,  accord  perfectly  with 
my  principles  deduced  a  priori,  as  stated  above. 

77.  Tlius  we  may  say,  not  only  that  the  soul 
(mirror  of  an  indestructible  universe)  is  inde- 
structible, but  also  the  animal  itself,  although  its 
machine  may  often  perish  in  part,  and  put  off  or 
put  on  organic  spoils. 

78.  These  principles  have  furnished  me  with  a 
natural  explanation  of  the  union,  or  rather  the  con- 
formity, between  the  soul  and  the  organized  body. 
The  soul  follows  its  proper  laws,  and  the  body 
likewise  follows  those  which  are  proper  to  it,  and 
they  meet  in  virtue  of  the  pre-established  harmony 
which  exists  between  all  substances,  as  representa- 
tions of  one  and  the  same  universe. 

79.  Souls  act  according  to  the  laws  of  final 
causes,  by  appetitions,  means  and  ends  ;  bodies  act 
according  to  the  laws  of  efficient  causes,  or  the 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         267 

laws  of  motion.  And  the  two  kingdoms,  that  of 
efficient  causes  and  that  of  final  causes,  harmonize 
with  each  other. 

80.  Descartes  perceived  that  souls  communicate 
no  force  to  bodies,  because  the  quantity  of  force 
in  matter  is  always  the  same.  Nevertheless,  he 
believed  that  souls  might  change  the  direction  of 
bodies.  But  this  was  because  the  world  was  at 
that  time  ignorant  of  the  law  of  nature  which 
requires  the  conservation  of  the  same  total  direction 
in  matter.  Had  he  known  this,  he  would  have  hit 
upon  my  system  of  pre-established  harmony. 

81.  According  to  this  system,  bodies  act  as  if 
there  were  no  souls,  and  souls  act  as  if  there  were 
no  bodies ;  and  yet  both  act  as  though  the  one 
influenced  the  other. 

82.  As  to  spirits,  or  rational  souls,  although  I 
find  that  at  bottom  the  same  principle  which  I  have 
stated  —  namely,  that  animals  and  souls  begin 
with  the  world  and  end  only  with  the  world  — 
holds  with  regard  to  all  animals  and  living  things, 
yet  there  is  this  peculiarity  in  rational  animals, 
that  although  their  spermatic  animacules,  as  such, 
have  only  ordinary  or  sensitive  souls,  yet  as  soon  as 
those  of  them  which  are  elected.^  so  to  speak,  arrive 
by  the  act  of  conception  at  human  nature,  their 
sensitive  souls  are  elevated  to  the  rank  of  reason 
and  to  the  prerogative  of  spirits. 


268  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

83.  Among  other  differences  wliicli  distinguish 
spirits  from  ordinary  souls,  some  of  which  have 
already  been  indicated,  there  is  also  this :  that  souls; 
in  general  are  living  mirrors  or  images  of  the  uni- 
verse of  creatures ;  but  spirits  are,  furthermore, 
images  of  Divinity  itself,  or  of  the  Author  of 
Nature,  capable  of  cognizing  the  system  of  the 
universe,  and  of  imitating  something  of  it  by  archi- 
tectonic experiments,  each  spirit  being,  as  it  were, 
a  little  divinity  in  its  own  department. 

84.  Hence  spirits  are  able  to  enter  into  a  kind 
of  fellowship  with  God.  In  their  view  he  is  not 
merely  what  an  inventor  is  to  his  machine  (as  God 
is  in  relation  to  other  creatures),  but  also  what  a 
prince  is  to  his  subjects,  and  even  what  a  father 
is  to  his  children. 

85.  Whence  it  is  easy  to  conclude  that  tlie  as- 
sembly of  all  spirits  must  constitute  the  City  of 
God,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  most  perfect  state  pos- 
sible, under  the  most  perfect  of  monarchs. 

86.  This  City  of  God,  this  truly  universal  mon- 
archy, is  a  moral  world  within  the  natural ;  and  it 
is  the  most  exalted  and  the  most  divine  among 
the  works  of  God.  It  is  in  this  that  the  glory 
of  God  most  truly  consists,  which  glory  would  be 
wanting  if  his  greatness  and  his  goodness  were 
not  recognized  and  admired  by  spirits.  It  is  in 
relation  to  this  Divine  City  that  he  possesses,  prop- 


THE  MONADOLOGY  OF  LEIBNIZ.         269 

erly  speaking,  the  attribute  of  goodness,  whereas  his 
wisdom  and  his  power  are  everywhere  manifest. 

87.  As  we  have  established  above,  a  perfect  har- 
mony between  the  two  natural  kingdoms,  —  the  one 
of  efficient  causes,  the  other  of  final  causes,  —  so  it 
behooves  us  to  notice  here  also  a  still  further  har- 
mony between  the  physical  kingdom  of  nature  and 
the  moral  kingdom  of  grace,  —  that  is  to  say, 
between  God  considered  as  the  architect  of  the 
machine  of  the  universe,  and  God  considered  as 
monarch  of  the  divine  City  of  Spirits. 

88.  This  harmony  makes  all  things  conduce  to 
grace  by  natural  methods.  This  globe,  for  exam- 
ple, must  be  destroyed  and  repaired  by  natural 
means,  at  such  seasons  as  the  government  of  spirits 
may  require,  for  the  chastisement  of  some  and  the 
recompense  of  others. 

89.  We  may  say,  furthermore,  that  God  as  arch- 
itect contains  entirely  God  as  legislator,  and  that 
accordingly  sins  must  carry  their  punishment  with 
them  in  the  order  of  nature,  by  virtue  even  of  the 
mechanical  structure  of  things,  and  that  good 
deeds  in  like  manner  will  bring  their  recompense, 
through  their  connection  with  bodies,  although  this 
cannot,  and  ought  not  always  to,  take  place  on  the 
spot. 

90.  Finally,  under  this  perfect  government  there 
will  be  no  good  deed  without  its  recompense,  and 


270  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

no  evil  deed  without  its  punishment ;  and  all  must 
redound  to  the  advantage  of  the  good  —  that  is  to 
say,  of  those  who  are  not  malecontents  —  in  this 
great  commonwealth,  who  confide  in  Providence 
after  having  done  their  duty,  and  who  worthily 
love  and  imitate  the  Author  of  all  good,  pleasing 
themselves  with  the  contemplation  of  his  perfec- 
tions, following  the  nature  of  pure  and  genuine 
Love,  which  makes  us  blest  in  the  happiness  of  the 
loved.  In  this  spirit,  the  wise  and  good  labor  for 
that  which  appears  to  be  conformed  to  the  divine 
will,  presumptive  or  antecedent,  contented  the 
while  with  all  that  God  brings  to  pass  by  his  secret 
will,  consequent  and  decisive,  —  knowing  that  if 
we  were  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  order  of 
the  universe  we  should  find  that  it  surpasses  all 
the  wishes  of  the  wisest,  and  that  it  could  not  be 
made  better  than  it  is,  not  only  for  all  in  general, 
but  for  ourselves  in  particular,  if  we  are  attached, 
as  is  fitting,  to  the  Author  of  All,  not  only  as  the 
architect  and  efficient  cause  of  our  being,  but  also 
as  our  master  and  the  final  cause,  who  should  be 
the  whole  aim  of  our  volition,  and  who  alone  can 
make  us  blest. 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  271 


IMMANUEL   KANT. 

nr^HE  number  is  small  of  writers  in  any  line, 
notably  in  that  of  metapliysic,  of  whom  it 
can  be  said  that  the  intellectual  status  of  their 
nation  and  mankind  would  be  other  than  it  is,  had 
they  never  written.  In  this  small  number  we  must 
reckon  Kant,  who,  with  a  mind  incomparably  more 
robust,  has  been  to  the  nineteenth  century  what 
Descartes  was  to  the  seventeenth,  and  what  Locke 
was  to  the  eighteenth. 

A  tradition  wdiich,  though  vouched  by  no  con- 
temporary documents,  has  been  commonly  received, 
ascribes  to  Kant  a  Scotch  descent.  The  professor 
is  said  to  have  been  the  first  Avho  altered  the 
spelling  of  the  name  from  C  to  K.  Those  who 
are  curious  in  the  matter  of  national  traits  may 
please  themselves  with  finding  the  source  of  the 
critical  philosophy  in  the  dialectic  proclivities 
of  the  Scottish  blood,  as  witnessed  in  Duns,  the 
subtlest  of  the  schoolmeii,  and  Hume,  the  subtlest 
of  sceptics. 

Immanuel  Kant  was  born  at  Konigsberg,  a 
university  city  in  East  Prussia,  on  April  22,  1724. 


272  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.    ' 

Pious  parents  —  the  father  a  saddler  by  trade  — 
intended  their  boy  for  the  service  of  the  Church. 
With  this  destination  in  view  he  was  sent  to  the 
Collegium  Fridericianum,  a  preparatory  school,  and 
afterwards  matriculated  as  a  student  of  theology 
in  the  university.  He  is  said  to  have  preached 
a  few  times  in  the  churches  of  the  neighboring 
villages ;  but  an  early  developed  habit  of  inde- 
pendent thought  and  a  craving  for  intellectual 
freedom  repudiated  the  mental  and  ecclesiastical 
conditions  of  the  clerical  office  as  he  found  it. 
The  pietism  wliich  tlien  prevailed,  and  in  the  spirit 
and  fashion  of  whicli  he  had  been  educated,  both 
at  home  and  at  school,  —  pietism  as  distinguished 
from  piety,  —  found  no  response  in  his  nature  ;  and 
when  the  alternative  presented  itself  of  the  church 
and  spiritual  bondage  on  the  one  hand,  or  a  secu- 
lar calling  with  freedom  of  thought  on  the  other, 
he  could  not  hesitate  between  the  two.  The  stern 
conscientiousness  which  that  very  pietism  and  his 
strict  bringing  up  had  nurtured  in  him,  sanctioned 
the  choice  of  the  secular  way.  He  devoted  himself 
to  the  business  of  teaching  and  of  authorship.  He 
was  thoroughly  equipped  and  furnished  for  his 
work.  The  years  of  preparation  in  school  and 
university  had  been  profitably  spent.  In  the  Frid- 
ericianum he  had  not  only  acquired  a  perfect  mas- 
tery of  the  Latin,  in  which  several  of  his  treatises 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  273 

are  written,  but  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the 
classics,  whom  he  loves  to  quote.  At  the  univer- 
sity he  learned  all  that  was  then  known  in  mathe- 
matics and  physics.  Like  all  great  metaphysicians, 
he  was  a  great  mathematician  as  well. 

The  height  of  his  ambition  was  to  fill  a  profes- 
sor^s  chair  in  the  university  of  his  native  city. 
But  many  years  elapsed  before  this  dream  was 
fulfilled.  Nine  of  them  were  spent  in  the  humble 
office  of  private  tutor  in  different  families,  the  last 
of  which,  that  of  Count  Kayserling,  introduced  him 
to  the  best  society  in  Konigsberg.  In  1755  he  was 
able  to  defray  the  expense  of  the  degree  of  Magis- 
ter  Philosophiag,  wliich  included  the  privilege  of 
lecturing  in  the  philosophical  department  of  the 
university,  and  the  chance  of  promotion  whenever 
a  vacant  professorship  should  offer.  He  lectured 
first  on  mathematics  and  physics,  then  on  logic  and 
metaphysic,  then  on  moral  philosophy,  on  natural 
theology,  and  physical  geography.  His  lectures, 
thanks  to  a  mind  well  stored  with  various  knowl- 
edge, and  a  wide  intellectual  horizon,  were  popu- 
lar, in  spite  of  the  pimy  figure  and  feeble  voice 
of  the  lecturer.  They  were  largely  attended  by 
hearers  outside  of  the  academic  pale.  Russian 
officers  quartered  in  Konigsberg  during  the  Seven 
Years'  War  manifested  a  special  interest  in  the 
course  on  physical  geography. 

18 


274  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Naturally  shy,  and  lecturing  without  notes,  he 
was  apt  to  be  embarrassed  when  anything  unusual 
occurred.  A  peculiar  costume  in  one  of  the  assem- 
bly would  put  him  out.  His  custom  was  to  fix  his 
eye  on  some  individual  who  sat  near,  and  to  speak 
as  if  addressing  him  alone.  On  one  occasion,  it  is 
said,  the  individual  addressed  chanced  to  have  a 
button  wanting  on  his  coat ;  the  lecturer's  eye  was 
fascinated  by  the  hiatus  :  and  tliis  trivial  circum- 
stance so  confused  him  that  with  difficulty  he 
struggled  through  the  hour. 

The  first  professorship  which  fell  vacant  was 
awarded  to  an  elder  magister.  It  was  precisely 
the  one  which  Kant  had  coveted,  the  professorship 
of  logic  and  metaphysic.  The  next  vacancy  Avhich 
occurred  was  that  of  professor  of  poetry.  It  was 
offered  to  Kant,  with  but  slight  regard,  it  would 
seem,  to  any  internal  vocation  on  the  part  of  the 
nominee.  Had  nothing  more  been  required  than 
to  lecture  on  the  nature,  history,  and  laws  of  poe- 
try, a  fitter  candidate  could  not  have  been  found. 
But  the  office  involved  the  necessity  of  writing 
poems  to  order,  occasional  poems  on  the  birthdays 
of  the  royal  family,  and  other  events  of  the.  year, 
which  Kant  conceived  to  be  somewhat  out  of  the 
line  of  his  calling.  He  ^^as  more  at  home  with 
the  ancient  poets  than  with  the  modern.  Among 
the  latter  his  favorites  were  Haller,  whose  scientific 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  275 

attainments  promised  sound  thought,  if  nothing 
else,  and  Pope,  whose  principal  poem  bore  in  its 
title  a  recommendation  to  the  philosophic  essay- 
ist. At  length,  in  1770,  the  incumbent  of  the 
coveted  professorship  was  transferred  to  another, 
and  Kant  was  called  to  the  vacant  place,  with 
a  salary  of  four  hundred  thaler. ^  At  the  age 
of  forty-six,  having  already  declined  invitations, 
with  ampler  emoluments,  from  other  universities, 
in  favor  of  his  native  city,  he  took  the  chair  of 
logic  and  metaphysic  in  the  university  of  Konigs- 
berg,  and  held  it  until  his  death,  in  1804,  at  the 
age  of  eighty. 

Of  so  remarkable  a  man,  —  one  of  the  great- 
est of  German  births,  confessedly  the  foremost 
thinker  of  modern  time,  —  one  desires  to  know 
something  of  the  person  and  manner  of  being,  as 
vouched  by  cotemporary  witnesses. 

A  puny  figure,  scarce  five  feet  high,  thin  and 
meagre  to  the  last  degree,  an  ample  forehead,  an 
elegantly  shaped  nose,  well-opened,  meditative  eyes, 
whose  expression  was  contradicted  by  thick  lips 
suggesting  delight  in  the  pleasures  of  the  table, 
composed  the  exterior  semblance  of  this  king  of 
men.      In  the  Walhalla   at   Regensburg   his   bust 

1  This  was  afterwards  increasea  to  six  hundred  and  twenty ; 
and  out  of  tliis  small  income,  plus  the  profits  of  his  works,  he 
managed  to  save  21,530  thaler  for  his  heirs. 


21b  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

appeared  to  me  on  a  cursory  view  the  most  insig- 
niricant  in  that  august  assembly  of  German  wor- 
thies, to  none  of  whom  was  he  second  in  majesty 
of  mind. 

Stronger  in  no  man  was  the  sense  of  personal 
independence.  Not  to  forfeit  that  independence  by 
})ecuniary  obligation,  through  the  poverty  and  amid 
the  struggles  of  early  manhood,  was  a  problem 
which  demanded  heroic  self-denial.  Kant  endured 
the  ordeal  with  stern  resolution,  never  allowing 
himself  an  unnecessary  expenditure,  never  accept- 
ing a  pecuniary  favor,  and  never  owing  a  penny. 
When  the  pinch  of  poverty  appeared  in  his  gar- 
ments, his  friends  would  gladly  have  replenished 
his  wardrobe  ;  but  he  repelled  the  offer,  and  con- 
tinued to  wear  his  threadbare  coat  until  his  own 
earnings  could  procure  him  a  new  one.  He 
exemplified  the  practical  philosophy  enjoined  in 
Emerson's  couplet :  — 

"  The  sources  wouldst  thou  stop  of  every  ill, 
Pay  every  debt  as  if  God  brought  the  bill." 

Next  to  keeping  out  of  debt,  and  partly  in  order 
to  that,  was  the  pressing  obligation  to  keep  himself 
in  working  order.  So  fragile  a  body  required  the 
uttermost  care  to  prevent  its  becoming  a  helpless 
incumbrance  instead  of  a  serviceable  tool.  This 
he  clearly  discerned  in  early  life,  and  governed 
himseK   accordingly.      With   some    knowledge   of 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  277 

anatomy,  he  studied  his  physical  constitution  as  a 
pathological  problem,  and  erected  on  that  study 
a  system  of  hygiene  whose  main  points  were  to 
strengthen  what  was  weak  by  temperance  and  ex- 
ercise, and  to  ignore  what  was  incurable.  A  nar- 
row chest  induced  a  sense  of  oppression  at  the 
heart  wliich  no  mechanical  appliance  would  relieve, 
and  which  tended  to  melancholy  and  hypochondria. 
Since  the  cause  could  not  be  removed,  the  effect 
must  be  guarded  against ;  and  this  he  accomplished 
by  foi-ce  of  will,  by  steadfastly  refusing  to  dwell 
on  it,  to  recognize  it  in  his  thought.  He  wrote  a 
treatise,  suggested  and  illustrated  by  his  own  expe- 
rience, on  the  power  of  the  mind  by  mere  determi- 
nation of  the  will  to  master  morbid  feelings.  In 
that  essay  he  relates  how  by  the  exercise  of  his 
will  he  overcame  a  chronic  cougli  of  long  standing, 
how  he  forced  himself  to  breathe  through  the  nose, 
how  he  broke  up  a  habit  of  wakefulness,  and  com- 
pelled sleep  by  compulsory  adjournment  of  mental 
action.  There  was  never  perhaps  a  more  remark- 
able instance  of  a  body  preserved  by  the  mind, 
of  life  prolonged  by  will.  With  such  a  physique  a 
weak-minded  or  less  intellectual  man  would  have 
died  before  the  age  of  thirty ;  Kant  kept  himself 
living  to  the  age  of  eighty. 

Uniformity  of  life  was  one,  and  a  very  essential, 
factor  in  this  result.     Mechanically  regular  in  all 


278  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

his  habits,  he  rose  every  morning,  winter  and  sum- 
mer, at  five,  and  went  to  bed  at  ten.  The  time 
from  five  to  seven  was  spent  in  stndy,  —  the  cup  of 
coffee  on  which  he  broke  his  fast  not  interrupting 
his  work.  From  seven  to  nine  he  lectured,  from 
nine  to  one  he  wrote.  At  one  he  dined ;  if  possi- 
ble, always  with  invited  guests.  The  dinner  was 
no  hasty  repast,  but  a  well-considered,  deliberate 
affair,  occupying  never  less  than  two  hours.  This 
was  his  season  of  recreation,  when  he  "  gave  to 
pleasure  all  his  mighty  mind."  His  varied  infor- 
mation, his  wealth  of  anecdote,  his  inexhaustible 
humor,  were  called  into  play  for  his  own  refresh- 
ment and  the  entertainment  of  his  guests. 

That  he  was  a  bachelor  goes  without  saying. 
Such  a  mind  must  be  free  from  domestic  cares.  It 
ought,  however,  to  be  said  that,  as  a  brother,  he 
was  a  true  and  generous  friend  to  his  sisters,  aiding 
them  with  counsel  and  money  according  to  their 
need.  Punctually  at  four  o'clock  in  the  summer, 
and  half-past  three  in  the  winter,  he  donned  his 
cocked  hat,  girded  on  his  sword,  the  appendage  then 
of  tlie  gentleman,  seized  his  rattan,  and  started  for 
a  walk  in  the  suburbs,  in  a  path  still  named  for 
him  "  the  philosopher's  walk."  It  was  said  that 
the  burghers  on  the  route  set  their  timepieces  by 
him  as  he  passed.  An  hour  was  spent  in  walk- 
ing up   and  down  the  Mall,  in  which  he  avoided 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  279 

companionship,  in  order  that  the  full  benefit  of  the 
exercise  might  lose  nothing  by  the  tax  of  conver- 
sation. The  walk  being  ended,  the  time  -which 
remained  until  candle-light  was  spent  in  social 
converse  or  in  meditation,  and  then,  until  bed- 
time, in  reading  and  preparation  for  the  next  day's 
lectures. 

This  programme  he  maintained  for  thirty  years, 
until  advanced  age  necessitated  abridgment  of  the 
hours  of  labor.  Any  break  in  this  routine  lie  felt 
as  a  calamity.  On  one  occasion,  returning  from 
the  daily  wallv,  he  was  met  by  a  nobleman  of 
his  acquaintance  driving  a  smart  span  of  horses, 
and  was  courteously  invited  to  take  a  seat  in 
his  phaeton.  Obeying  a  momentary  impulse  of 
friendly  acquiescence,  the  philosopher  complied ; 
and  repented  too  late,  when  the  spirited  conduct 
of  the  beasts,  and  wliat  seemed  to  him  their  exor- 
bitant speed,  suggested  to  his  inexperience  visions 
of  a  broken  neck  and  an  end  of  philosophizing. 
The  drive  was  a  long  one  ;  a  friend  residing  at  a 
distance  from  the  city  had  to  be  visited  ;  and  when 
at  length  our  professor  was  set  down,  late  in  the 
evening,  at  his  own  door,  thoroughly  demoralized 
and  vexed  with  himself,  he  hastened  to  inscribe  for 
future  guidance,  in  his  diary,  as  a  life-maxim,  never 
to  mount  a  vehicle  which  he  had  not  himself  hired, 
and  of  which  he  had  not  the  control.     This  rule, 


280  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

once  established,  no  power  on  earth  could  tempt 
liim  to  violate. 

Perfect  quiet  he  found  to  be  essential  to  his 
mental  operations ;  no  train  of  thought  could  be 
carried  on  without  it.  Noises  of  all  kinds  were  an 
abomination  to  him  ;  he  repeatedly  changed  his 
lodgings  to  escape  them.  In  one  street,  along  the 
Pregel,  it  was  the  noise  of  the  marine.  The  "  yo- 
heave-oh  "  of  the  seamen,  however  it  might  speed 
their  craft,  prevented  his  from  getting  fairly  under 
way.  In  his  next  settlement  a  neighbor's  cock 
was  addicted  to  much  crowing.  Instant  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  the  bird  defied  him.  He  offered 
to  purchase  it  at  any  price ;  but  the  owner  would 
not  part  with  it,  and  Kant  was  obliged  to  leave. 
He  finally  purchased  a  small  tenement  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Castle,  away  from  the  din  of 
the  city  ;  and  there  he  thought  himself  safe.  But 
the  city  jail  was  inconveniently  near ;  and  when  the 
windows  were  open,  the  singing  of  psalms,  in  which 
the  prisoners  were  encouraged  to  engage  for  their 
edification,  aroused  in  the  solitary  student  quite 
other  feelings  than  those  which  dictated  the  sacred 
melodies.  In  a  letter  to  his  friend  the  burgo- 
master, who  had  ex  officio  the  oversight  of  such 
institutions,  he  protested  against  these  stentorian 
devotions,  in  which  he  detected  an  unsanctified 
purpose,  and   expressed   his  belief  that  the  souls 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  281 

of  the  convicts  would  take  no  detriment  if  their 
voices  were  modulated  to  the  customary  pitch  with 
which  religious- households  in  the  city  conducted 
their  spiritual  exercises.  The  nuisance  was  abated  ; 
but  another  annoyance,  of  the  opposite  sort,  he  had 
to  suffer,  from  bands  of  music  which  played  for 
occasional  parties  in  the  neighborhood.  It  was 
this  experience,  perhaps,  that  led  him  to  charac- 
terize music  as  an  "  obtrusive  art."  Any  change 
in  his  surroundings  acted  with  disturbing  force  on 
his  thoughts.  In  his  evening  meditations  he  was 
helped  by  fixing  his  eye  on  some  stationary  object ; 
it  prevented  the  wanderhig  of  the  mind.  A  cer- 
tain tower,  the  Lobenicht  tower,  visible  from  his 
study  window,  had  served  him  in  this  capacity. 
The  distance  was  exactly  suited  to  his  eye,  and  he 
often  spoke  with  satisfaction  of  the  aid  he  had 
found  in  it ;  but  the  poplars  in  his  neighbor's  yard 
grew,  and  shut  out  the  friendly  object.  For  want 
of  it  his  ratiocination  halted ;  and  who  can  say 
what  precious  conclusions  the  world  would  have 
lost,  had  not  his  neighbor  kindly  consented  to  lop 
the  tall  trees  in  the  interest  of  philosophy  ? 

It  was  not  from  any  want  of  social  sympathy 
that  he  lived  a  bachelor,  nor  from  any  aversion  to 
women,  whose  conversation  he  enjoyed  so  long  as 
they  abstained  from  learned  topics ;  but  simply  be- 
cause there  seemed  to  be  no  jdace  in  his  life-plan 


282  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

where  a  wife  would  fit.  In  one  of  his  table-talks, 
when  the  conversation  turned  on  the  duties  of 
women,  Kant  expressed  his  higli  estimate  of  femi- 
nine influence,  and  spoke  of  virtues  to  be  cultivated 
and  faults  to  be  avoided.  "  A  woman,"  he  said, 
"  should  be  like  the  church  clock,  she  should  have 
an  open  countenance,  and  be  punctual  in  her  habits  ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  she  should  not,  like  the 
church  clock,  tell  the  public  all  she  knows."  Again, 
"  she  should  be  like  the  snail,  domestic  ;  but  not  like 
the  snail,  carry  all  her  property  on  her  back." 

A  well-meaning,  pragmatical  clergyman  of  his 
acquaintance  urged  him  to  marry,  and  wrote  for 
his  special  edification  a  treatise  setting  forth  the 
propriety  of  wedlock  as  being,  according  to  Scrip- 
ture, an  honorable  estate,  and  well  pleasing  in  the 
sight  of  God.  Kant  thanked  him  civilly  for  his 
advice,  and  remained  celibate.  He  had  turned  the 
matter  over  in  his  thoughts.  There  was  one  occa- 
sion when  he  seriously  debated  with  himself  the 
question  of  the  dual  economy.  There  came  to 
Konigsberg,  on  a  visit  to  her  friends,  a  young  and 
comely  widow,  who  manifested  a  special  pleasure 
in  his  society,  and  to  whom  he  was  strongly  at- 
tracted. But  a  question  of  conscience  gave  him 
pause.  Was  he  justified,  with  his  limited  means, 
in  undertaking  the  pecuniary  burden  of  wedlock  ? 
And  while  he  was  measuring  his  income  with  the 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  283 

probable  expense  of  a  family,  tbe  widow  gave  her- 
self, for  better  or  worse,  to  a  less  deliberate  wooer. 
But  Kant  was  the  best  of  friends,  helpful  with  purse 
as  well  as  counsel,  where  help  was  needed. 

One  of  his  intimates  was  an  Englishman  by  the 
name  of  Green.  Their  first  encounter  was  ill- 
omened,  and  threatened  life-long  enmity.  It  was 
at  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  War  of  Inde- 
pendence. Even  in  that  remote  corner  of  Ger- 
many our  revolt  was  the  topic  of  the  day.  Kant 
embraced  with  ardor  the  American  side  ;  and  on 
one  occasion,  at  a  party  where  Green,  then  un- 
known to  him,  was  present,  he  was  defending  with 
great  animation  the  action  of  the  Colonies,  when 
the  Englishman  started  up  and  declared  in  a  tow- 
ering passion  that  he  considered  the  gentleman's 
remarks  as  an  insult  to  his  country,  and  conse- 
quently to  himself  as  the  representative  of  that 
country,  for  which  he  demanded  satisfaction.  The 
philosopher  kept  his  temper;  and,  disclaiming  any 
disrespect  to  Eugland,  argued  the  question  on  gen- 
eral principles  with  such  calmness  and  good  sense, 
and  such  thorough  mastery  of  the  case,  that  Green 
was  ashamed  of  his  heat,  and  begged  Kant's  par- 
don. At  parting  they  shook  hands,  and  desired 
each  other's  nearer  acquaintance.  The  acquain- 
tance soon  ripened  into  close  friendship,  wliich 
lasted  through  life.      Green  was  a   notable  char- 


284  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

acter,  a  man  after  Kant's  own  heart.  To  the 
sturdy  independence  and  self-poise  of  an  English- 
man he  seems  to  have  united  an  exceptional 
intelligence.  It  is  said  that  Kant  consulted  him 
even  on  questions  of  philosophy,  and  submitted  his 
works  to  his  friend  before  sending  them  to  the 
press.  A  common  friend  of  the  two  was  the  bank- 
director  Ruffmann ;  and  associated  with  these  was 
a  fourth,  who  was  also  an  Englishman,  or  rather 
a  Scotchman,  Motherby.  The  four  were  in  the 
habit  of  spending  some  portion  of  their  afternoons 
together  at  the  house  of  Green.  Jachmann,  one  of 
Kant's  biographers,  gives  an  amusing  account  of 
these  meetings.  First,  Kant,  returning  from  his 
daily  walk,  would  enter  Green's  room,  and,  finding 
him  asleep  in  his  easy  chair,  would  sit  down  by  his 
side  and  begin  to  brood  over  some  metaphysical 
problem,  until  he  also  fell  asleep.  Then  came  Ruff- 
maun,  and  seeing  the  situation,  composed  himself 
in  like  manner  for  an  afternoon  nap ;  until,  finally, 
Mot]ierl)y,  according  to  appointment,  joined  the  trio 
and  waked  them  up ;  after  which  they  engaged  in 
conversation  until  seven.  The  hour  of  separation 
was  so  punctually  observed  that  dwellers  on  the 
street  would  say  :  ^'  It  is  seven  o'clock ;  Professor 
Kant  has  just  come  from  Green's !  " 

I  have  spoken  of  Kant  as  he  was  in  his  prime. 
The  habits  of  his  manhood  were  greatly  modified 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  285 

in  his  latter  years  by  the  creeping  infirmities  of 
age.  A  rigorous  hygiene  could  bring  him  to  his 
eightieth  birthday ;  but  no  hygiene  could  stave  off 
the  labor  and  trouble  which  the  Hebrew  moralist 
assigns  to  the  eighth  decade  of  our  mortality.  As 
life  drew  near  to  its  close,  the  hours  of  rest  were 
prolonged,  the  hours  of  labor  were  abridged.  For 
some  time  before  his  death  he  had  been  forced  to 
forego  his  customary  recreations  as  well  as  his 
formal  tasks.  His  eyesight  failed  him,  one  eye 
having  already  lost  its  speculation  in  his  better 
days.  His  limbs  refused  their  office  ;  he  fell  in 
w^alking,  and  he  fell  when  he  stood.  Of  his  last 
year  the  greater  portion  w^as   spent  in  bed. 

One  satisfaction  alone,  one  luxury,  remained  to 
him,  and  that  he  indulged  without  stint,  —  the 
luxury  of  kindness.  The  savings  from  his  annual 
income,  to  wdiich,  after  he  became  famous,  were 
added  the  profits  of  his  works,  had  in  the  course  of 
years,  under  the  skilful  handling  of  his  financial 
friend,  Green,  amounted  to  what  in  those  days,  for 
a  scholar  especially,  was  a  handsome  property.  Of 
this  he  gave  yearly  a  sum  nearly  equal  to  the 
Avhole  of  his  stipend  in  charity.  Next  to  his  poor 
relatives,  the  persons  assisted  by  him  were  chiefly 
indigent  students  and  families,  once  comfortable, 
whom  mischance  had  deprived  of  the  means  of 
support.     One  of  the  last  sayings  recorded  of  him 


286  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  that  he  would  be  grateful  to  any  one  who  would 
put  liuTi  in  the  way  of  doing  a  kind  deed. 

With  the  beginning  of  February,  1804,  his  vital- 
ity declined  with  so  rapid  an  ebb  that  friends  were 
daily  expecting  to  hear  of  his  decease ;  yet  when, 
on  the  12th  of  that  montli,  the  final  event  was 
announced,  the  community  through  all  its  ranks 
experienced  a  shock  such  as  probably  no  other 
death  had  caused  within  the  memory  of  men  then 
living.  Kant  was  the  cherished  jewel  of  the  city 
and  the  land. 

"  It  seemed  beyond  tlie  common  lawful  sway 
Of  death  and  nature  o'er  our  kind, 
That  such  a  one  as  he  sliould  pass  away, 
And  aught  be  left  behind." 

Reverent  thousands  flocked  to  his  obsequies ;  his 
knell  was  rung  from  every  tower  ;  students,  the 
pupils  of  his  pupils,  formed  a  guard  of  honor 
around  his  bier.  The  University  mourned  her 
greatest  son,  and  in  due  season  called  her  chil- 
dren together  from  far  and  near  to  celebrate  his 
praise. 

I  have  said  that  Kant  was  made  Professor  of 
Logic  and  Metaphysic  in  17T0,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
six.  Bevond  the  walls  of  Koni2:sberQ^  he  was  but 
little  known  until,  in  1781,  he  gave  to  the  world 
the  work  which  drew  to  him  the  regards  of  the 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  287 

learned  in  all  the  dominions  of  Germany.  Even 
of  this,  the  most  important  of  his  works,  the 
*'  Kritik  dor  rcincn  Vernunft,"  the  renown  was 
not  a  rapid  growth.  Important  as  it  proved  to 
be  in  the  end,  it  may  almost  be  said  to  have  been 
stillborn.  Though  known  to  a  few  who  knew 
the  author  from  his  previous  writings,  nine  years 
elapsed  before  it  conquered  for  itself  a  wide  repute. 
In  Germany,  more  perhaps  than  in  any  other 
country,  the  universities  decide  the  claims  and 
fortunes  of  philosophic  writings,  and  the  uni- 
versities were  long  in  discovering  the  immense 
signilicance  of  this  audacious  work  ;  but  when 
discovered,  the  intelligence  spread  with  electric 
rapidity,  until  all  the  universities  were  aglow  with 
it,  and  adopted  the  ''  Kritik  "  as  the  basis  or  the 
text  of  their  philosophic  teaching.  And  —  what 
is  remarkable  —  the  Catholic  universities  were  no 
whit  behind,  but  in  many  cases  led  the  Protestant 
in  this  reform.  Wiirzburg,  Mainz,  Heidelberg,  In- 
goldstadt,  Erfurt,  Bamberg,  vied  with  Halle,  Jena, 
Erlangen,  Leipsic,  Gottingen,  Marburg,  and  Gies- 
sen.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that,  when  verging 
on  threescore  and  ten,  Kant  found  himself  sud- 
denly raised  from  merely  local  honors  to  the 
pinnacle  of  national  fame. 

I  shall  not  undertake  a  complete  exposition  of 
the  Kantian  philosophy,  nor  presume  to  pass  judg- 


288  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

meiit  upon  it.  The  most  I  can  do  is  to  indicate  its 
starting-point  and  some  of  its  fundamental  posi- 
tions. The  title  "  Critical  Philosophy,"  embracing 
"  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,"  "  Kritik  der  prak- 
tischen  Vernunft,"  and  "  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft/' 
must  be  interpreted  —  especially  as  regards  the 
first  of  these  treatises  —  with  reference  to  the  so- 
called  dogmatic  philosophy  of  Wolff,  which  had 
possession  of  the  field  when  Kant  began  his  labors, 
and  in  part  also  to  the  scepticism  of  Hume,  which 
appeared  as  the  legitimate  outcome  of  the  sensuous 
philosophy  of  Locke. 

Christian  Wolff,  born  1679,  was  the  first  German 
philosopher  who  wrote  in  the  German  language, 
and  thereby  secured  to  himself  a  constituency 
beyond  the  circle  of  professional  scholars.  He 
made  philosophy  a  popular  interest,  and  his  own 
philosophy  the  accepted  doctrine  of  his  time. 
Erdmann  calls  him  the  creator  of  German  phil- 
osophical diction.  In  Halle,  where  he  occupied  a 
chair  in  the  university,  and  where  the  novelty  of 
philosophy  in  German  drew  large  audiences,  tlie 
bigotry  of  the  theological  faculty,  and  their  influ- 
ence with  the  civil  authority,  procured,  in  1723,  an 
edict  from  Frederick  William,  then  king  of  Prus- 
sia, by  which  Wolff  was  not  only  deposed  from 
office,  but  commanded,  on  pain  of  the  gallows,  to 
leave  the  country  within  forty-eight  hours.     He  did 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  289 

not  wait  the  expiration  of  that  term,  but  fled  imme- 
diately to  Marburg,  in  Hesse-Cassel,  seat  of  the 
earliest  Protestant  university,  to  which  he  had 
previously  received  a  call,  and  where  the  persistent 
machinations  of  his  orthodox  persecutors  were 
defeated  by  a  more  liberal  and  enlightened  govern- 
ment. Meanwhile  in  Prussia  his  works  were  con- 
fiscated ;  imprisonment  for  life  decreed  for  all  who 
should  harbor  them.  With  the  accession  of  Fred- 
erick II.  religious  bigotry  lost  the  support  of  the 
temporal  power,  the  edict  of  banishment  was  re- 
voked, and  Wolff  returned  to  Halle,  where,  rein- 
stated in  his  former  professorship,  he  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  days  ;  but  where,  it  is  said,  he  did 
not  recover  his  former  popularity,  having  nothing 
new  to  offer,  and  being  unable  to  compete  with 
younger  talent.  The  interest  in  him  ceased  with 
the  persecution  of  his  enemies  ;  and  when  a  com- 
mission, appointed  for  the  purpose,  had  pronounced 
his  philosophy  safe,  it  somehow  lost  its  attraction 
for  the  curious  youth  of  the  university. 

Wolff's  system  is  eclectic,  based  mainly  on  that 
of  Leibniz,  advancing  nothing  new  in  the  way  of 
first  principles,  but  only  modifying  the  doctrines  of 
his  predecessors.  It  was  termed  the  ''  dogmatic 
philosophy,"  as  building,  on  certain  assumed  pre- 
mises, a  system  of  doctrine  concerning  all  topics 
of  philosophic  inquiry,  correctly  enough  reasoned. 
19 


290  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

were  only  the  foundations  secure.  Kant,  in  the  In- 
troduction to  the  second  edition  of  tlie  "  Kritik  der 
reinen  Ycrnunft,"  praises  his  method,  calls  hira  the 
greatest  of  dogmatic  philosophers,  and  says  he  has 
shown  us  by  his  procedure  what  is  the  true,  safe 
course  of  metaphysic,  had  it  only  occurred  to  him 
to  first  prepare  the  ground  by  critical  examination 
of  the  organ  of  metaphysic,  that  is,  of  pure  reason 
itself.  This  defect  of  the  dogmatic  philosophy  it  is 
the  aim  of  the  critical  philosophy  to  supply. 

On  the  other  hand,  Hume,  antipodal  to  Wolff, 
—  Hume,  the  arch-sceptic,  assuming,  after  Locke, 
tliat  all  our  conclusions,  the  whole  body  of  our 
knowledge,  is  directly  or  indirectly  the  product  of 
the  senses,  had  called  in  question  the  validity  of 
that  knowledge,  by  showing  that  our  inferences 
from  sensuous  experience  rest  solely  on  mental 
habit,  and  not  on  demonstration  or  any  ground  of 
pure  reason  ;  that  we  have  no  valid  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  the  same  antecedents  will  always  be 
followed  by  the  same  results,  or  like  conditions 
by  like  consequences,  according  to  an  assumed 
law  of  cause  and  effect.  Because  the  sun  has  risen 
hitherto  at  stated  intervals,  we  have  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  therefore  it  will  rise  to-morrow,  or 
that  because  heavy  bodies,  unsupported,  have  used 
to  fall  to  the  ground,  they  will  therefore  continue 
to   do  so.     The  belief  in  such   continuance  may 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  291 

answer  all  practical  purposes,  but  it  furnishes  no 
basis  of  metaplij^sical  science.  We  have  no  right 
to  speak  of  causation ;  all  we  know  is  succession  of 
events.  This  scepticism,  which  struck  at  the  root 
of  all  knowledge,  Kant  endeavored  to  meet  by  con- 
troverting the  fundamental  position  of  Locke  and 
his  followers  as  to  the  origin  of  our  ideas.  He 
impugned  the  genetic  order  affirmed  by  that  phil- 
osophy. So  far  from  being  true  that  mental  per- 
ceptions are  derived  from  sensuous  experience,  he 
maintained,  on  the  contrary,  that  sensuous  experi- 
ence is  conditioned  by  the  mind.  Hume  had  said 
that  our  ideas  are  copies  of  sensible  impressions. 
Kant  said.  No !  Sensible  impressions  themselves 
are  the  product  of  ideas,  that  is,  of  forms  of 
thought  inherent  in  the  mind.  It  has  hitherto 
been  assumed  that  cognition  must  conform  to  its 
objects ;  but  all  attempts  to  determine  anything 
concerning  them  a  priori  by  means  of  concepts 
have  been  nullified  by  this  presumption.  Let  us 
therefore  see  whether  in  metaphysical  problems 
we  may  not  succeed  better  by  assuming  that 
objects  conform  to  our  cognitions. 

Objects  conform  to  our  cognitions  ?  What  does 
that  mean  ?  It  means  that  our  cognition  deter- 
mines the  objects  we  perceive ;  in  other  words, 
determines  our  perceptions.  If  our  cognitions  were 
different,  the  supposed  objects  would  be  different. 


292  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

On  what,  then,  does  cognition  depend  ?  It  depends 
on  the  constitution  of  the  mind.  If  we  see  things 
thus  or  thus,  it  is  because  our  minds  are  thus  or 
thus  constituted,  with  such  and  such  laws  and 
modes  of  action.  The  vulgar  notion  is  that  our 
senses  by  their  immediate  action  give  us  the  ob- 
jects we  perceive,  precisely  as  we  perceive  them  ; 
that  is  found  to  be  an  error.  The  senses  give  us 
no  perceptions,  but  only  sensations,  simple  or  com- 
plex. How,  then,  do  we  get  our  perceptions  of  an 
external  world  ?  The  understanding  manipulates, 
if  I  may  use  the  term  in  this  connection,  the  given 
sensations  according  to  certain  ideas,  laws,  and 
modes  of  working  inherent  in  its  constitution, 
which  Kant  calls  Categories ;  of  which  there  are 
tAvelve.  By  these  it  distinguishes,  defines,  mea- 
sures, arranges,  and  so  creates  the  perceptions, 
which  are  vulgarly  supposed  to  be  transcripts  of 
external  objects,  but  which,  in  fact,  are  the  product 
of  our  own  minds.  What  may  be  tlie  character  of 
the  objects  themselves,  says  Kant,  independently 
of  our  perceptions,  we  can  never  know.  We  know 
only  our  manner  of  perceiving  them  ;  that  manner 
is  peculiar  to  us,  and  may  not  be  the  same  in  other 
beings.  Though  we  attain  to  the  uttermost  clear- 
ness in  our  perceptions,  they  bring  us  no  nearer  to 
the  nature  of  things  as  they  are  in  themselves  ;  we 
only  attain  to  more  perfect  knowledge  of  our  own 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  293 

sensuous  capacity,  under  the  conditions  of  space  and 
time,  which  have  their  origin  in  ourselves.  There 
are  two  factors  in  our  cognition  which  perhaps 
have  a  common,  unl^nown  root,  —  sensibility  and 
understanding.  The  former  furnishes  the  objects 
of  our  knowledge ;  the  other  thinks  them  into 
shape, — i.  e.,  shapes  them  into  concepts.  The  un- 
derstanding has  no  faculty  of  seeing  things  ;  sensi- 
bility has  no  power  of  thinking  them  :  only  when 
the  two  combine  in  brotherly  union  is  cognition 
effected,  and  from  cognition  experience. 

In  maintaining  that  we  know  nothing,  and  can 
know  nothing,  of  things  without  us  as  they  exist 
in  tliemselves,  was  Kant  an  -  Idealist  ?  Not  in 
the  sense  of  Berkeley.  He  earnestly  disclaims  the 
charge  of  such  idealism.  "  Never,"  he  says,  "  has 
it  entered  my  mind  to  doubt  the  existence  of 
things  without  us,  but  only  whether  the  sensuous 
presentation  of  things  gives  us  any  true  knowledge 
of  things  as  they  are  in  themselves."  The  second 
edition  of  the  "  Kritik  "  contains  a  ''  Refutation  of 
Idealism,"  in  which  the  author  maintains  that  the 
existence  of  things  external  to  us  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  any  definite  consciousness  of  our  own 
existence.  The  experiential  consciousness  of  my 
own  existence  is  itself  only  an  indirect  one ;  that 
is,  possible  only  by  means  of  external  experience. 
Again,   in    the    "  Prolegomena    to    every    Future 


294  MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

Mctapliysic,"  he  thus  distinguishes  between  his  own 
position  and  that  of  the  Idealists.     He  says  :  — 

"  The  allegation  of  all  Idealists  is  contained  in  this 
formula  :  All  cognition  through  the  senses  and  through 
experience  is  mere  appearance  ;  truth  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  ideas  of  the  pure  understanding  and  pure  reason. 
The  principle,  on  the  contrary,  which  governs  my  formal, 
or  better,  critical,  idealism,  is  that  all  cognition  from  pure 
understanding,  or  pure  reason  alone,  is  mere  appearance, 
and  that  truth  is  to  be  found  oidy  in  experience." 

The  distinction  is  a  very  subtle  one,  and  a  critic 
might  object  that  to  deny  that  Ave  see  the  real 
thing  is  after  all  a  kind  of  idealism.  Berkeley  him- 
self admits  external  reality.  There  is  something 
distinct  from  ourselves  which  causes  us  to  see 
things,  —  i.  e.,  gives  us  ideas  of  an  external 
world ;  that  something  is  God,  who  impresses  these 
ideas  on  the  mind.  According  to  Kant,  there  are 
things  which  furnish  the  ground  of  our  percep- 
tions ;  but  what  they  are  we  can  never  know. 
We  do  not  perceive  them.,  but  only  our  own 
Vorstellungen. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  first  part  of  the  "  Kri- 
tik  der  reinen  Yernunft."  Its  outcome  is  that  all 
knowledge  originates  in  experience ;  but  experience 
is  something  of  which  our  own  understanding  is 
the  principal   factor. 

The  second  part  is  occupied  with  the  examination 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  295 

of  those  ideas  and  beliefs  which  transcend  the 
reach  of  sensible  experience.  Here  our  philoso- 
plier,  with  that  uncompromising-,  inexorable  logic 
which  procured  for  him  the  sobriquet  of  "  Der 
Alleszermalmende,"  "  The  All-to-pieces-crushing," 
proceeds  to  show  that  pure  reason  can  never,  by 
legitimate  exercise  of  its  function,  establish  the 
reality  of  those  objects  which  lie  l)eyond  the  reach 
of  experience,  —  God,  immortalit}',  an  infinite  uni- 
verse. Its  legitimate  office  is  to  promote  complete- 
ness in  the  action  of  the  understanding  as  applied 
to  the  series  of  phenomena,  to  extend  indefinitely 
the  use  of  experience.  Its  practical  use  is,  by 
means  of  its  ideas  (God,  immortality,  etc.),  to  gain 
room  for  moral  principles  outside  of  actual  knowl- 
edge. This  may  explain  the  inborn  transcendental 
aspiration  of  human  reason.  This  transcenden- 
tal aspiration  has  for  its  objects  three  ideas,  —  a 
psychological,  a  cosmological,  and  a  theological ; 
the  idea  of  the  soul  as  an  independent,  self-existent, 
continuous,  indestructible  entity  ;  the  idea  of  an 
infinite  cosmos,  and  the  idea  of  an  extramundane, 
personal  God. 

In  relation  to  the  first,  the  attempt  to  verify  it 
logically  results  in  sophisms.  All  that  is  affirmed 
of  the  soul  is  based  on  the  proposition,  ''  I  am." 
This  of  itself  means  nothing  ;  it  is  simply  a  neces- 
sary form  of  presentation,  a  consciousness  which 


29G  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

attends  all  our  thinking,  as  condition  or  substra- 
tum. Nothing  is  represented  by  this  "  I,"  to  which 
^\Q  refer  all  our  thinking,  nothing  of  which,  inde- 
pendently of  the  contents  of  our  thought,  we  can 
form  the  least  conception.  We  go  about  it  with 
our  reasoning  in  a  perpetual  circle ;  we  make  use 
of  the  idea  itself  to  determine  what  it  is.  The  "  I " 
cannot  get  outside  of  the  "  I "  to  judge  of  it.  The 
question  concerning  the  nature  of  this  something, 
which  is  unthinkable  except  by  itself,  is  nuga- 
tory, seeing  that  it  lies  outside  of  all  possible 
experience. 
/  In  relation  to  the  second,  or  cosmological,  idea, 

reason  entangles  itself  with  insoluble  contradic- 
tions, or  Avhat  Kant  calls  "  antinomies."  He  enu- 
merates four  propositions,  of  which  the  affirmative 
and  the  negative  are  equally  true  and  equally  false  ; 
i.  e.,  equally  capable  of  demonstration  and  of  re- 
futation. 1.  The  world  had  a  beginning  in  time, 
and  is  bounded  in  space.  On  the  contrary,  the 
world  is  witliout  beginning,  and  without  bounds. 
2.  All  matter  consists  of  simples,  and  of  com- 
pounds formed  of  these  simples.  On  the  contrary, 
there  is  no  simple,  but  all  matter  is  infinitely  divi- 
sible. 3.  Causation  according  to  natural  laws  is 
not  the  only  cause  from  which  the  phenomena  of 
the  world  are  derived ;  they  require  for  their  expla- 
nation the  supposition  of  a  free,  ^.  e.,  an  uncaused, 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  297 

cause.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  no  freedom ; 
everything  in  the  world  is  the  product  of  natural 
laws.  4.  In  the  series  of  world-causes  there  is  an 
absolutely  necessary  Being.  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  no  necessary  being,  either  in  or  without  the  world, 
to  which  its  origin  is  to  be  ascribed.  From  these 
contradictory  propositions,  each  of  wdiicli  is  equally 
defensible  on  the  ground  of  concepts  furnished  by 
the  understanding,  and  equally  beyond  the  reach 
of  experience,  it  is  inferred  that  the  cosmological 
questions  involved  in  them  are  indeterminable  by 
pure  reason. 

And  now,  finally,  in  relation  to  the  third,  the 
theological  idea,  it  is  shown  that  Reason  transcends 
her  legitimate  office  when,  from  the  notion  of  an 
All-Perfect,  —  the  sum  of  all  possibility,  —  she  pro- 
ceeds to  infer  the  existence  of  an  object  correspond- 
ing to  that  notion,  which  we  call  God,  and  demands 
that  this  creation  of  human  thought  shall  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  actually  existent  Being,  given  us  prior 
to,  and  independent  of,  our  thought. 

From  this  brief  account  of  its  main  points,  it  ap- 
pears that  the  aim  of  Kant's  critique  is  to  demon- 
strate the  impossibility  of  acquiring  by  legitimate 
use  of  reason  any  knowledge  of  things  beyond 
the  reach  of  experience.  And  Kant  himself  con- 
fesses that  "-  the  chief,  and  pei'haps  the  only,  use  of 
a  philosophy  of  pure  reason  is  a  negative  one.     It 


298  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  not  an  organon  for  extending,  but  a  discipline  for 
limiting !  Instead  of  discovering  truth,  its  modest 
function  is  to  guard  against  error." 

Are  we  to  infer  from  the  result  of  his  Kritik 
that  Kant  intended  to  deny  or  to  call  in  question, 
or  that,  as  a  man,  he  disbelieved  those  fundamental 
truths  which,  as  a  philosopher,  he  pronounces  inde- 
monstrable ?  The  conclusion  does  not  seem  to  me 
authorized  by  what  we  know  of  Kant  from  other 
sources.  His  object  was  to  combat  the  dogmatism 
of  the  current  philosophy,  whicli  had  reared  an 
elaborate  system,  a  showy  edifice,  on  insufficient 
foundations,  —  theological  assumptions  which,  how- 
ever valid  in  religion,  are  inadmissible  in  philoso- 
phy until  logically  verified.  To  say  that  a  doctrine 
is  not  proved  is  a  very  different  thing  from  saying 
that  the  doctrine  is  not  true. 

In  the  second  edition  of  the  ''  Kritik,"  which  fol- 
lowed the  first  after  an  interval  of  six  years,  the 
author  made  important  changes,  omitting  a  portion 
of  the  old  matter,  and  inserting  new.  The  ten- 
dency of  these  changes  is  conservative,  and  sug- 
gests a  retractation  of  the  bolder  positions  of  the 
original  work.  Schopenhauer,  though  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Kant,  ascribes  them  to  senile  timidity, 
fear  of  incurring  the  censure,  perhaps  the  persecu- 
tion, of  civil  authority.  Frederick  the  Great,  the 
defender  of  religious   liberty,  had  died;   and   his 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  299 

successor,  a  very  different  spirit,  was  known  to  look 
with  disfavor  on  all  that  militated  against  the 
traditional  faith.  That  Kant  was  influenced  by 
this  consideration  I  am  unwilling  to  believe.  That 
during  the  six  years  his  views  may  have  undergone 
some  modification  is  not  improbable.  In  the  Intro- 
duction to  his  second  edition  he  excuses  the  nega- 
tions of  his  "  Kritik  "  with  these  remarkable  words  : 
'^ Iliad  to  give  up  hioivledge  in  order  to  make  room 
for  faithr  And  in  his  next  great  work,  the  "  Kri- 
tik der  pratkischen  Vernunft,"  he  says  that  Pure 
Reason,  in  her  practical  endeavor, —  /.  e.,  the  en- 
deavor to  establish  moral  obligation,  —  is  compelled 
to  assume  God  and  immortality,  in  order  that  her 
purely  moral  precepts  may  commend  themselves 
as  something  more  than  crotchets  of  the  brain ; 
and  so  he  seems  to  give  back  to  practical  reason 
what  he  had  taken  from  speculative.  If  moral 
obligation  presupposes  God  and  immortality,  then 
the  certainty  of  the  latter  is  vouched  by  that  of 
the  former. 

Heinrich  Heine,  after  his  fashion,  represents  this 
latter  treatise  as  a  resuscitation  of  the  deism  which 
the  former  treatise  had  put  to  death.     He  asks  :  — 

"  Did  Kant  undertake  tliis  resuscitation,  not  merely  on 
account  of  old  Lampe  [Kant's  servant,  who  needed  a 
God],  but  also  on  account  of  the  pohce  ?  Or  did  he 
really  act  from  conviction  %    Did  he  destroy  the  proofs  of 


300  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  existence  of  God  merely  to  show  us  how  bad  it  is  to 
be  without  a  God  1  In  that  case  he  acted  as  wisely  as 
my  Westphalian  friend,  who  smashed  all  the  street-lamps 
on  the  Grohnde  Street  in  Gottingen,  and  then,  standing 
there  in  the  dark,  preached  to  us  a  long  sermon  on  the 
practical  necessity  of  streetdamps,  which  he  had  theo- 
retically destroyed,  only  to  show  us  that  we  could  see 
nothing  without  them." 

The  "  Kritik  der  praktischeu  Yernunft,"  embra- 
cing the  "  Griindlegung  ziir  Metaphysik  der  Sitten  " 
(Foundation  of  the  Metapliysic  of  Morals),  contains 
Kant's  ethical  system,  of  which  the  distinguishing 
feature  is  its  absolutism.  He  insists  on  the  auton- 
omy of  the  will.  The  will  must  be  governed  by 
no  motive  but  the  categorical  imperative ;  it  must 
determine  itself  in  conformity  with  the  moral  law, 
irrespective  not  only  of  any  gain  to  the  actor,  but 
of  all  personal  considerations,  of  all  consequences 
that  are  to  ensue  from  our  action.  For  example, 
we  must  do  good  to  others,  not  for  the  sake  of 
others,  but  for  the.  sake  of  the  good  we  are  com- 
manded to  do.  "  Act  as  if  the  maxim  of  your 
action  could  by  your  will  become  a  universal  law 
of  nature."  In  the  "  Tugendlehrc  "  (Doctrine  of 
Virtue),  which  is  given  as  a  separate  treatise,  but 
properly  forms  a  part  of  his  ethical  system,  he  lays 
down  the  law  that  ethical  duties  are  not  to  be  esti- 
mated by  our  (supposed)  ability  to  satisfy  the  law, 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  301 

but,  on  the  contrary,  moral  ability  is  to  be  estimated 
by  tlie  law  which  commands  categorically,  conse- 
quently, not  according  to  the  empirical  knowledge 
we  have  of  mankind  as  they  are,  but  according  to 
the  rational  knowledge  of  mankind  as  they  should 
be,  conformably  to  the  idea  of  humanity.  In  other 
words,  duty  is  not  to  be  measured  by  ability,  but 
ability  by  duty.     I  can,  because  I  must. 

Next  to  the  two  works  which  have  been  named, 
—  the  "  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason,"  and  the  "  Kritik 
of  Practical  Reason,"  —  the  best  known,  and  per- 
haps of  all  Kant's  writings  the  most  approved,  is  the 
"  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft "  (Critique  of  the  Faculty 
of  Judging).  This  treatise  consists  of  two  parts. 
The  first  discusses  aesthetic  judgments,  or  the  prin- 
ciples of  taste ;  the  second  treats  of  teleological 
judgments,  or  judgments  which  affirm  design  in 
the  forms  and  relations  of  organic  life.  The 
design  which  we  find  in  nature,  he  maintains,  is 
nothing  inherent  in  the  objects,  but  only  our  way 
of  looking  at  them,  —  a  necessity  of  the  human 
mind  to  impute  design  where  it  sees  fitness  in  the 
relation  of  part  to  part.  Kant  has  written  notliing 
more  original  and  incisive  than  this  treatise. 
Schelling  says  of  one  of  its  sections  ^  that  "  never 

1  The  seventy-sixth :  "  Concerning  that  Peculiarity  of  tlie 
Human  Understanding  wliich  enables  us  to  form  the  Idea  of 
Purpose  in  Nature." 


302  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 

perhaps  were  so  many  profound  thoughts  crowded 
into  so   few  pages." 

Among  the  more  important  of  Kant's  works  be- 
sides the  three  which  have  been  mentioned,  are  his 
physical  and  geographical  treatises  ;  his  ••'  Logic  ;  " 
his  "  Only  Possible  Demonstration  of  the  Being 
of  God ; "  his  "  Religion  within  the  Bounds  of 
Reason ; "  his  "  Philosophy  of  History  ;  "  and  his 
"  Anthropology."  All  these  bear  the  stamp  of  his 
peculiar  genius,  —  rich  in  original  thought,  and  pro- 
foundly suggestive  ;  but  I  must  content  myself  with 
simply  naming  them. 

I  have  indicated  some  of  the  positions  of  the 
Kantian  philosophy.  The  net  result  and  value  of 
that  philosophy  it  is  not  my  intention  to  discuss. 
I  will  only  observe  that  the  value  of  any  system  of 
metaphysic  must  be  sought,  not  in  positive  addi- 
tions to  human  knowledge,  not  in  revelations  of 
unquestionable  truths,  discoveries  which  no  subse- 
quent criticism  shall  overthrow,  but  in  the  impulse 
it  gives  to  thought,  in  the  light  it  throws  on  the 
deepest  questions  of  the  soul,  in  the  prospect  it 
opens  of  new  fields  of  inquiry.  Some  of  Kant's 
doctrines,  and  notably  that  of  space  and  time  as 
connate  forms  of  perception,  and  of  certain  con- 
cepts  as  given  forms  of  thought  antecedent  to  all 
experience,  are  rejected  by  later  and  more  exhaus- 
tive psychology  :  but  many  of  his  views  still  hold 


IMMANUEL  KANT.  803 

their  place,  and  his  spirit  still  lives ;  the  movement 
which  he  inaugurated  is  still  in  progress. 

The  noble  army  of  metaphysicians  to  Avliom  Ger- 
many has  given  birth  since  the  appearance  of  the 
^'  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  and  which  no  nation 
can  match  with  so  numerous  and  bright  an  array, 
including  Fichte,  Fries,  Reinhold,  Krause,  Schel- 
ling,  Hegel,  Schopenhauer,  and  many  more,  are 
Kant's  spiritual  offspring,  and  own  the  lineage 
of  that  master  mind.  The  nature  of  the  influence 
he  exerted  on  German  literature  outside  of  the 
province  of  philosophy  proper,  it  is  difficult  to 
define  ;  but  the  fact  of  that  influence  is  unmistaka- 
ble. It  is  due  not  so  much  to  any  doctrine  of  his 
teaching,  as  it  is  to  the  lift  which  he  gave  to  the 
national  mind.  Schiller,  it  is  well  known,  was  a 
zealous  student  of  Kant,  and  owed  to  that  study 
the  direction  of  his  thought  as  expressed  in  his 
philosophical  essays.  In  a  letter  inviting  Kant  to 
contribute  to  the  "  Horen  "  he  says  :  "  Accept,  in 
conclusion,  the  assurance  of  my  liveliest  gratitude 
for  the  beneficent  light  which  you  have  kindled  in 
my  mind,  —  a  gratitude  which,  like  tlie  gift  on 
which  it  is  grounded,  is  without  bounds  and  imper- 
isliable."  Jean  Paul  wrote  in  1788  to  his  friend  Yo- 
gel :  "  For  Heaven's  sake  purchase  for  yourself  two 
books :  Kant's  '  Grundlegung  zu  einer  Metaplw- 
sik  der  Sitten,'  and  Kant's  '  Kritik  der  praktischen 


804  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.' 

Yernunft.'  Kant  is  not  so  much  a  light  of  the 
world  as  he  is  a  whole  beaming  solar  system  at 
once."  Goethe  confesses  his  indebtedness  to  the 
"  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft "  for  a  very  joyful 
epoch  of  his  life ;  and  in  answer  to  a  question  of 
Eckermann,  "  Whom  do  you  regard  as  the  greatest 
of  modern  philosophers  ? "  he  answered,  "  Kant, 
beyond  all  doubt.  He  is  also  the  one  whose  doc- 
trine has  shown  a  continuing  efficacy,  and  has 
penetrated  most  deeply  our  German  culture.  He 
has  influenced  you  too,  although  you  have  never 
read  him.  Now  you  do  not  need  to  read  him,  for 
you  already  possess  what  he  could  give  you." 
Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  one  of  the  finest  spirits 
of  his  day,  bears  this  testimony  :  — 

"  Kant  undertook  and  accomplished  the  greatest  work 
that  perhaps  the  philosophy  of  reason  ever  owed  to  a  single 
individual.  .  .  .  Vastness  and  power  of  imagination  are 
in  him  associated  with  acuteness  and  depth  of  thought. 
How  mucli  or  how  little  of  the  Kantian  philosophy  has 
maintained  itself  to  this  day,  or  will  maintain  itself  in 
time  to  come,  I  do  not  assume  to  decide.  But  three 
things  remain  as  witnesses  of  the  glory  he  has  conferred 
on  his  nation,  and  the  service  he  has  rendered  to  specula- 
tive thought.  Somewhat  that  he  has  demolished  will 
never  assert  itself  again  ;  somewhat  that  he  has  founded 
will  never  perish  ;  and  —  what  is  most  important  —  he 
has  established  a  reform  to  which  few  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  can  be  compared.  ...  It  was   not  so   much 


IMMANUEL   KANT.  305 

philosophy  that  he  taught,  as  the  way  to  pliilosophize. 
He  did  not  so  much  communicate  new  discoveries  as  he 
lighted  the  torch  of  independent  search.  Thus  he  has 
given  rise  to  systems  and  schools  more  or  less  divergent 
from  his  own.  And  this  is  characteristic  of  the  lofty 
freedom  of  his  spirit,  that  he  was  able  to  start  other 
j^hilosophies,  which  also,  in  perfect  freedom,  work  on  for 
themselves  in  self-created  ways." 


20 


306  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


IRONY. 

[From  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  October,  1870.] 

T:;^  MANUEL  SWEDENBORG,  reviving  a  doc- 
■^^  trine  of  Origen,  professed  to  have  discovered 
in  the  sacred  writings  of  tlie  Hebrews  this  peculiar- 
ity, distinguishing  it  from  other  literatures,  that, 
besides  what  the  authors  seem  to  say,  —  above  or 
beneath  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  terms  em- 
ployed, —  they  say  something  else  and  very  dif- 
ferent. If  the  Swedish  theosopher  is  right  in  this 
view  of  them,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  excel  in  the 
quality  of  irony.  Not  that  the  writers  themselves 
"  palter  with  us  in  a  double  sense."  The  writers 
themselves  are  supposed  to  be  unconscious  of 
the  trailing  mystery  accompanying  their  earnest 
speech.  But  a  spirit  more  subtle  than  the  writer, 
lurking  behind  the  pen,  plays  liide-and-seek  with 
the  reader.  It  sounds  odd  to  speak  of  the  Bible  as 
the  literature  of  irony,  but,  according  to  this  view, 
it  possesses  that  quality  in  an  eminent  degree. 
For  the  essence  of  literary  irony  consists  in  the 
^'  something  behind,"  a  spirit,  a  meaning,  not  wholly 
expressed  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  writing. 
"  Irony  of  the  spirit  '•'  we  may  term  this  species. 


IRONY.  807 

The  Irony  of  Passion.  —  The  principle  of  irony 
must  have  a  deep  foundation  in  human  nature, 
so  universal  is  its  manifestation,  so  diverse  and 
opposite  the  moods  of  mind  that  in  it  find  their 
fit  expression.  Joy,  sorrow,  love,  hate,  —  all  iro- 
nize.  It  is  the  native  idiom  of  all  passion  which 
thus  ekes  out  its  imperfect  utterance  by  drawing 
on  its  opposite.  Excessive  joy,  no  less  than  grief, 
finds  vent  in  tears,  and  is  ready  to  die  of  its  own 
fulness.     "  If  it  were  now  to  die,"  says  Othello, 

"  'T  were  now  to  be  most  happy  ;  for  I  fear, 
My  soul  hath  her  content  so  absolute, 
That  not  another  comfort  like  to  this 
Succeeds  in  unknown  fate." 

On  the  other  hand,  overwhelming  sorrow,  no  less 
than  joy,  disposes  to  mirth.  Hamlet,  stunned  with 
grief  and  rage  by  the  recent  revelations  of  his 
father's  ghost,  summons  his  companions  with  the 
"  Hillo,  ho,  ho,  boy  !  come,  bird,  come  !  "  of  the  fal- 
coner, and  confides  to  Horatio,  on  promise  of  the 
strictest  secrecy,  the  astounding  fact  that  "  there  's 
ne'er  a  villain  in  all  Denmark,  but  he  's  an  arrant 
knave."  The  backwoodsman,  when,  returning  from 
his  day's  work,  he  finds  that  his  vrhole  family  have 
been  murdered  by  the  Indians,  says,  "  It 's  too 
ridiculous  !  "  and  laughs,   and  dies. 

Love  delights  in  minifying,  and  even  disparaging, 
terms  of  endearment,  and  often  teases  by  way  of 


808  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

blandishment:  "Excellent  loretch!  .  .  .  but  I  do 
love  thee."  And  often  intense  hatred  borrows  the 
vocabulary  of  praise. 

Irony  as  Satire.  —  Irony,  as  commonly  under- 
stood, is  criticism  by  contraries.  Emphasis  is 
given  to  the  real  thought  of  the  speaker  by  con- 
trast with  the  thought  professed ;  as  when,  in 
answer  to  Dalila's  complaint  that 

"  In  argument  with  men  a  woman  ever 
Goes  by  the  worse,  whatever  be  her  cause," 

Samson  Agonistes  retorts, 

"  For  want  of  words,  no  doubt,  or  lack  of  breath." 

A  favorite  kind  of  rhetorical  irony  is  that  of 
warning  cloaked  as  pretended  recommendation. 
Hoffmann's  serious  admonition  to  stage-managers 
and  scene-shifters,  after  the  model  of  Swift's  advice 
to  servants,  is  a  happy  instance.  The  writer  warns 
them  that  poets  and  actors  have  complotted  to  de- 
ceive honest  people  and  make  them  believe  that 
what  they  witness  on  the  stage  is  actual  events  and 
persons,  much  to  the  prejudice  of  their  understand- 
ings and  their  peace  of  mind  ;  that  consequently 
they,  the  managers  and  scene-shifters,  are  in  duty 
bound,  so  far  as  in  them  lies,  to  frustrate  this- 
nefarious  design,  and  to  counteract  the  intended 
illusion. 

"  To  this  end,  let  them  occasionally  insert  the  wrong 
scene  or  drop  the  wrong  curtain.     In  a  scene  representing 


IRONY.  309 

a  gloomy  cave,  let  a  little  piece  of  the  saloon  behind  appear, 
so  that  when  the  prima  donna  bewails  in  touching  strains 
her  cruel  imprisonment,  the  spectator  may  listen  undis- 
turbed, knowing  that  the  machinist  has  only  to  ring  the 
bell,  and  the  gloomy  prison  will  disappear,  and  the  friendly 
saloon  take  its  place.  A  very  good  device  is,  suddenly,  in 
the  midst  of  a  lugubrious  chorus,  at  the  very  moment  of 
intensest  interest,  to  let  fall,  as  if  by  accident,  a  drop- 
scene,  separating  the  actors,  so  that  a  portion  of  those  in 
the  background  shall  be  cnt  off  from  their  interlocutors 
in  the  proscenium.  ...  I  remember,"  he  says,  "  seeing 
this  measure  employed  with  great  effect,  although  with 
some  incorrectness  in  the  application,  in  a  ballet.  The 
•prima  ballerina  was  executing  a  beautiful  sola.  Just  as 
she  was  pausing  for  a  moment  in  a  splendid  attitude,  and 
while  the  spectators,  crazy  with  delight,  were  shouting  and 
clapping,  the  machinist  suddenly  let  foil  a  drop-scene 
which  shut  her  off  from  public  view.  But  unfortunately 
the  drop-scene  was  a  drawing-room  with  a  great  door  in 
the  middle,  and  before  one  was  aware,  the  resolute  danseuse 
came  hopping  through  the  door,  and  continued  her  sola. 
See  to  it,  therefore,  that  your  drop-scene  on  such  occasions 
has  no  door."  ^ 

English  literature,  second  to  none  in  humorous 
satire,  has  many  choice  bits  of  rhetorical  irony. 
The  following  is  from  Martinus  Scriblerus  on  the 
Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry  :  — 

"  When  I  consider,  my  dear  countrymen,  the  extent, 
fertility,  and  populousness  of  our  Lowlands  of  Parnassus, 
the  flourishing  state  of  our  trade,  and  the  plenty  of  our 

1  Der  volkommene  Maschinist,  in  Hoffmann's  Fantasiestucke. 


810  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

manufactures,  there  are  two  reflections  which  administer 
great  occasion  of  surprise,  —  the  one  that  al]  dignities 
and  honors  should  be  bestowed  upon  the  exceeding  few 
meagre  inhabitants  of  the  top  of  the  mountain  ;  the  other 
that  our  own  province  should  have  arrived  to  that  great- 
ness it  now  possesses  without  any  regular  system  of  laws. 
As  to  the  first,  it  is  with  gn-eat  pleasure  that  I  have  observed 
of  late  the  gradual  decay  of  delicacy  and  refinement  among 
mankind,  who  are  become  too  reasonable  to  require  that 
we  should  labor  with  infinite  pains  to  come  up  to  the 
taste  of  these  mountaineers,  when  they,  without  any,  may 
condescend  to  ours.  But  as  Ave  now  have  an  unquestion- 
able majority  on  our  side,  I  doubt  not  but  we  shall  be 
shortly  able  to  level  these  highlanders,  and  procure  a 
further  vent  for  our  own  product,  whicli  is  already  so 
much  relished,  encouraged,  and  rewarded  by  the  nobility 
and  gentry  of  Great  Britain.  .  .  ,  Furthermore,  it  were 
great  cruelty  if  all  such  authors  as  cannot  write  in  the 
other  way  were  prohibited  from  writing  at  all.  Against 
this  I  draw  an  argument  from  what  seems  to  me  an  un- 
doubted physical  maxim,  that  poetry  is  a  natural  or  morbid 
secretion  of  the  brain.  As  I  would  not  suddenly  stop  a 
cold  in  the  head,  or  dry  up  my  neighbor's  issue,  I  would 
as  little  hinder  him  from  necessary  writing.  It  may  be 
afiirmed  with  great  truth,  that  there  is  hardly  any  human 
creature  past  childhood,  but  at  one  time  or  other  has  had 
some  poetical  evacuation,  and  no  doubt  was  much  the 
better  for  it  in  his  health.  ...  I  have  known  a  man 
thoughtful,  melancholy,  and  raving  for  divers  days,  who 
forthwith  grew  wonderfully  easy,  lightsome,  and  cheerful 
upon  the  discharge  of  the  peccant  humor,  in  exceeding 
purulent  metre.  .  .  .  From  hence  it   follows  that  a  sup- 


IRONY.  311 

pression  of  the  very  worst  poetry  is  of  dangerous  conse- 
quence to  the  state.  ...  It  is,  therefore,  manifest  that 
mediocrity  ought  to  be  allowed,  yea,  indulged,  to  the  good 
subjects  of  England." 

Irony,  as  a  mode  of  satire,  describes  a  wdde  and 
rich  province  of  letters,  —  a  province  embracing 
not  a  few  of  the  choicest  spirits,  and  some  of  the 
most  genial  compositions,  of  all  time.  Here  shine 
the  names  of  Lucian,  Erasmus,  Cervantes,  Rabelais, 
Butler,  Voltaire,  Swift,  Heine. 

But  literature  has  other  ironies  than  that  of 
satire.  Writers  of  loftier  aim  and  graver  tone 
than  those  I  have  named  have  found  their  advan- 
tage in  this  fascinating  element.  Bishop  Thirl- 
wall,  in  a  paper  contributed  to  the  "  Philological 
Museum,"  discusses  the  irony  he  professes  to  find 
wdiere  certainly  one  would  not  suspect  it,  —  in  the 
tragedies  of  Sophocles.  But  the  irony  in  that  case 
is  not  a  trait  of  the  poet's  mind,  it  inheres  in  the 
subject-matter  of  his  fables  ;  it  is  the  irony  of 
Fate  in  the  fortunes  of  Ajax,  of  (Edipus,  and  Phil- 
octetes  which  he  depicts.  The  irony  I  have  in 
view  is  purely  subjective.  But  how  shall  I  define, 
how  discriminate  from  satire  on  the  one  hand,  and 
superficial  badinage  on  the  other,  —  how  identify, 
under  forms  so  various,  the  subtle  spirit  which  I 
seem  to  detect  in  writers  wdio  else  have  scarce 
anything  in  common  ?     I  select  for  examples  two 


312  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

poets  as  remote  from  each  other  in  the  bent  of 
their  genius  as  can  well  be  found,  —  Milton  and 
Goethe. 

In  Milton's  prose,  though  largely  satirical,  the 
element  of  irony  is  not  conspicuous.  His  poetry, 
which  is  not  satirical,  is  steeped  in  it.  It  consti- 
tutes, I  think,  the  peculiar  charm  of  his  verse. 
Take  the  "  Hymn  to  the  Nativity."  The  poet  treats 
the  Gentile  divinities  as  actually  existing  perso- 
nages ;  and  that,  not  in  the  way  of  poetic  machi- 
nery, as  other  Christian  poets  have  sometimes 
done,  but  because  the  position  he  assumes  in  this 
poem  is  properly  outside  of  all  religions.  He  looks 
upon  their  conflict  as  Homer's  gods  behold  the 
conflict  of  the  Greeks  and  Trojans,  not  indeed  with 
indifference,  for  he  is  celebrating  the  triumph  of 
the  Christian  cause,  yet  not  exactly  as  a  Christian 
believer.  His  position  is  that  of  an  outsider.  He 
sings  the  victory,  but  not  as  personally  concerned 
in  it,  except  as  his  sympathy  goes  with  the  victor. 
The  Gentile  divinities  are  as  real  to  him  as  the 
new-born  God  wlio  puts  them  to  flight ;  but  they 
have  had  their  day,  they  must  yield  to  the  incoming 
era  of  the  new  dispensation. 

*'  Nor  all  the  Gods  beside 

Longer  dare  abide ; 
Not  T\-pbon  huge,  ending  in  snaky  twine; 

Our  Babe,  to  sliow  his  Godhead  true, 
Can  in  his  swaddling  bands  control  the  damned  crew." 


IRONY.  313 

The  irony  here  consists  in  the  poet's  aloofness 
from  Ills  theme,  suggesting  an  arriere-pensee^  and 
leaving  a  gap  between  it  and  the  thought  ex- 
pressed, of  which  the  reader  must  supply  the  miss- 
ing link.  In  conversing  with  works  of  genius,  we 
feel  the  difference  between  those  in  which  the 
writer  is  sunk  in  his  theme,  and  goes  wholly  out  in 
it,  and  those  in  which  he  seems  to  stand  apart 
from  his  own  creations,  as  if  toying  with  them  and 
with  us.  The  difference  is  no  test  of  poetic  merit ; 
the  creative  power  may  be  greater  in  the  former 
case  than  in  the  latter.  It  is  only  a  difference  of 
intellectual  reaction,  a  difference  in  the  reach  of 
conscious  thought,  —  a  fuller  waking,  albeit  the 
waking  of  a  genius  less  robust. 

The  charm  of  that  something  beyond,  that  cir- 
cumfused  aura  of  reserve  which  constitutes  the 
essence  of  irony,  I  find  in  the  greatest  perfection 
in  Goethe.  Of  all  writers  he  impresses  me  most 
with  the  feeling  of  a  double  self.  He  is  not,  like 
most  of  his  cotemporaries,  subjective,  but  objec- 
tive in  his  creations.  His  individuality  is  not  put 
forward  as  in  Byron,  in  Schiller,  in  Richter,  even 
in  Wordsworth,  but  studiously  kept  in  the  back- 
ground. But  the  reader  is  made  conscious  of  that 
background,  of  a  thought  in  reserve,  wdiich  is  the 
real  Goethe,  behind  the  thought  expressed,  which 


314  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  also  the  real  Goethe  as  well.  Even  in  his  Auto- 
biography, where  the  topic  is  self,  he  contrives  to 
get  behind  that  self  ;  now  object,  now  subject,  now 
both.  The  very  title  is  a  stroke  of  irony,  —  "  Fic- 
tion and  Truth."  In  the  opening  chapter  he 
gravely  recounts  the  astrological  aspects  which 
auspicated  his  nativity  ;  he  gives  us  his  horoscope 
as  if  it  were  an  essential  part  of  the  history.  Did 
Goethe,  then,  believe  in  astrology  ?  No.  Did  he 
mean  to  satirize  that  belief  ?  No.  Is  he  jesting  ? 
Yes,  and  no.  Is  he  in  earnest  ?  No,  and  yes.  The 
reader  may  take  it  as  he  pleases.  This  is  what 
another,  reflecting  on  that  birth,  might  find,  astro- 
logically  expressed,  in  the  fortunes  awaiting  the 
man-child  who  was  dropped  upon  this  earth-ball 
in  Frankfort  on  the  Main  on  the  28th  of  August, 
1749. 

In  the  "  Conversations  of  German  Emigrants " 
the  "  Old  Man,"  who  had  previously  narrated  two 
moral  stories  of  the  deepest  practical  significance, 
promises  the  company  a  tale  that  shall  "  remind 
them  of  nothing  and  of  everything;"  and  tlms 
introduces  that  wonderful  composition  which  Ger- 
man critics  have  denominated  ''  The  Tale,"  distin- 
guishing it  from  everything  else  in  that  line. 
Here  the  ironical  in  Goethe's  genius  reaches  its 
climax.  The  thing  remains  to  this  day  an  un- 
solved  problem,   and  in   all   likelihood    will   ever 


IRONY.  315 

remain  so.  Whether  the  author  really  meant  any- 
thing more  by  it  than  to  entertain  the  reader  with 
a  magic-lantern  of  incongruous  images,  and,  if  so, 
what  that  meaning  is,  are  matters  of  conjecture. 
The  sphinx  is  dumb,  and  gives  no  sign.  Carlyle, 
who  tried  his  teeth  on  it,  calls  it  "  one  of  the  nota- 
blest  performances  produced  for  the  last  thousand 
years,  wherein  more  meaning  lies  than  in  all  the 
literature  of  our  century."  Novalis  doubtless  had 
Goethe  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  that  "  the  gen- 
uine Miilirehen  is  prophetic,  an  absolutely  necessary 
presentation,  and  the  author  of  such  a  one  a  seer  of 
the  future."  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  by 
those  who  have  studied  it  that  in  some  way  it 
figures  the  past  and  future  of  humanity  ;i  but  as 
to  the  import  of  separate  parts,  there  is  no  agree- 
ment, and  can  be  no  certainty.  It  was  meant  that 
there  should  be  none.  Irony,  throned  on  that 
monument,  smiles  an  eternal  smile  in  the  face  of 
Hermeneutic. 

In  the  "  Faust,"  where  the  subject-matter  itself  is 
the  irony  of  life,  the  irony  in  the  treatment  is  less 
apparent ;  scarcely  at  all  in  the  first  part,  and  only 
here  and  there,  as  in  the  visit  to  the  "  Mothers," 
in  the  second. 

Goethe,  like  Milton  in  the  "  Nativity,"  assumes 

1  A  recent  writer,  Baumgart,  limits  the  interpretation  to  the 
future  of  Germany. 


316  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  some  of  his  pieces  a  position  external  to  reli- 
gion ;  but  with  this  distinction,  that  Milton,  though 
standing  poetically  aloof,  pays  reverent  tribute  to 
the  Christian  faith,  whose  fervent  disciple  he  is, 
whilst  Goethe's  attitude  is  sometimes  that  of  poe- 
tic indifference,  and  sometimes  leans  to  heathen 
views. 

In  the  lines  addressed  to  his  noble  and  devout 
friend,  the  Fraulein  von  Klettenberg,  he  makes  use 
of  the  expression,  referring  to  a  picture  of  tlie 
Saviour  in  her  room  :  "  The  God  who  suffered  for 
you."     He  says  in  his  Autobiography  :  — 

"  When  in  these  stanzas,  as  sometimes  on  other  occa- 
sions, I  represented  myseff  as  an  outsider,  a  stranger,  or 
even  a  heathen,  she  did  not  object ;  on  the  contrary,  she 
assured  me  that  she  hked  me  better  so  than  when  I  made 
use  of  Christian  terminology,  in  the  application  of  which, 
she  said,  I  never  succeeded.  Indeed  it  was  a  common 
thing  for  me,  when  I  read  to  her  -the  missionary  reports, 
which  she  always  enjoyed  hearing,  to  take  the  part  of  the 
Gentiles  against  the  missionaries,  and  to  venture  to  prefer 
their  former  estate.  She  remained  ever  friendly  and  gen- 
tle, and  seemed  to  have  no  anxiety  on  my  account,  nor  to 
be  at  all  concerned  about  my  salvation." 

In  the  poem  inscribed  "  To  Coachman  Kronos," 
in  which  he  likens  his  ideal  of  life  to  a  day's  drive 
in  a  stage-coach,  finding  nothing  in  Christian  ima- 
gery that  suited  his  mood,  he  draws  on  pagan  ideas 
to  celebrate  a  glorious  ending  :  — 


IRONY.  '  317 

"  Drunk  with  tlie  sun's  last  ray,  — 
A  sea  of  fire  in  my  foaming  eye, — 
Wliirl  me,  dazzled  and  reeling, 
Into  Hell's  nocturnal  gate. 

Sound,  0  coachman,  thy  horn  ! 
With  clatter  and  echoing  tramp 
Let  Orcus  know  we  are  coming, 
That  the  host  may  be  at  the  door 
To  give  us  friendly  reception." 

In  the  piece  entitled  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians,"  he  takes  part  with  the  silversmith 
against  the  Apostle.  He  describes  with  artistic 
sympathy  an  aged  goldsmith  at  work  in  his  atelier, 
fashioning  with  pious  care,  as  taught  by  his  father, 
figures  for  the  girdle  of  the  loved  goddess  :  — 

"  When  all  at  once  he  hears  so  loud, 
Like  a  rushing  wind,  in  the  street  a  crowd ; 
And  a  talk  there  is  of  a  God  unseen  — 
Behind  man's  foolish  brow  they  ween  — 
More  worthy  far  than  the  Being  here 
In  whose  breadth  the  Godhead  we  revere. 
The  master  listens,  nor  listens  long ; 
His  boys  may  run  to  see  the  throng  ; 
He  files  away,  nor  heeds  the  sound. 
His  goddess  adorning  with  deer  and  hound, 
And  trusts  that  his  fortune  it  may  be 
To  represent  her  worthily. 

If  any  one  think  otherwise. 
Let  him  do  as  seemeth  good  in  his  eyes  ; 
But  to  injure  our  craft  if  he  presume, 
A  shameful  end  shall  be  his  doom." 

In  that  most  weird  and  tragic  of  all  ballads,  an- 
cient or  modern,  "  The  Bride  of  Corinth,"  where 


318  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

recent  Christianity  and  expiring  polytheism  are 
brought  into  conflict,  he  enlists  our  sympathies  in 
favor  of  the  ancient  faith.  The  spectre  bride  com- 
plains that  she  is  left  desolate  ;  all  her  family  have 
turned  Christian  :  — 

"  All  tlie  gods,  the  gay,  withdrew  their  blessing, 
Fled  the  house,  nor  longer  here  abide ; 
One  alone  in  heaven,  unseen,  confessing, 
And  a  Saviour  on  the  cross  who  died. 

We  no  longer  here 

Offer  lamb  nor  steer  ; 
Human  victims  have  their  place  supplied." 

One  must  not  infer  from  such  utterances  that 
the  wise  and  poised  seer  liad  any  sympathy  with 
disorganizing  radicalism.  The  contrary  is  evident 
from  the  piece  entitled  "  The  Neologians :  "  — 

"  I  met  a  young  man,  and  I  asked  his  trade. 
It  is  my  endeavor  and  hope,  he  said, 
To  earn  enough  before  I  die 
A  snug  little  yeoman's  farm  to  buy. 
I  praised  his  intent  and  bade  him  God  speed  ! 
And  much  I  hoped  he  might  succeed, 
When  I  learned  that  he  had  from  his  dear  papa, 
And  also  from  madam,  his  mamma, 
Baronial  estates  of  the  amplest  kind. 

That  is  what  I  call  an  original  mind." 

Goethe's  irony  is  due  in  part  to  his  social  posi- 
tion, to  reaction  against  conventional  limitations, 
and  in  part  to  hatred  of  philistinism  and  pedantry. 

Suspicious  of  systems,  in  an  age  of  philosophical 


IRONY.  319 

and  political  doctrinaires ;  appealed  to  on  this 
hand  and  that  for  a  verdict  on  things  human  and 
divine ;  a  disbeliever  in  violent  revolutions,  yet 
living  in  the  midst  of  them ;  charged  with  indiffer- 
ence to  human  weal  because  he  chose  to  promote 
it  by  doing  his  own  work  in  his  ow^n  way,  and 
refused  to  lend  himself  to  any  faction,  —  he  found 
in  irony  his  sure  palladium  against  the  assaults  of 
those  w^ho  could  neither  convince  nor  comprehend 
him.  His  "  Coptic  Song  "  is  an  indication  of  the 
method  he  sometimes  saw  fit  to  adopt :  — 

"COPTIC  SONG. 

"  Leave  to  the  learned  tlicir  vain  disputations, 
Strict  and  sedate  let  the  pedagogues  be ; 

Ever  the  wise  of  all  ages  and  nations 

Nod  to  each  other  and  smile  and  agree  : 

Vain  the  attempt  to  cure  fools  of  their  folly, 

Children  of  wisdom  abandon  it  wholly  ; 

Fool  them  and  rule  them,  for  so  it  must  be. 

"  Merlin  tlie  old  in  his  tomb  ever  shining, 
Where  as  a  youngling  I  heard  him  divining, 

Similar  counsel  confided  to  me  : 
Vain  the  attempt  to  cure  fools  of  their  folly, 
Children  of  wisdom  abandon  it  wholly  ; 
Fool  them  and  rule  them,  since  fools  they  will  be. 

"  Mountains  frequented  by  Indian  adorers, 
Crypts  the  resort  of  Egyptian  explorers, 
All  that  is  sacred  confirms  the  decree : 
Vain  the  attempt  to  cure  fools  of  their  folly, 
Children  of  wisdom  abandon  it  wholly  ; 
Fool  them  and  rule  them,  for  so  it  should  be." 


320  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

One  sees  how  the  irony  so  marked  in  Goethe  as 
a  writer  had  its  root  in  an  inborn  or  inbred  irony 
of  character ;  and  this  suggests  a  separate  branch 
of  our  subject. 

Irony  in  Character.  —  There  are  characters  in 
history  in  whom  this  trait  predominates  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  constitute  them  a  class  by  them- 
selves. Socrates,  whose  elpcovela,  so  baffling  to 
Thrasymachus  and  the  Sophists,  perhaps  originated 
our  use  of  the  term ;  Diogenes,  rolling  his  tub  in 
mockery  of  the  preparations  for  the  Sicilian  war ; 
Augustus,  choosing  a  sphinx  for  his  seal ;  Julian 
the  Apostate,  Frederick  the  Second  of  the  Hohen- 
stauffen,  Abelard,  Leo  the  Tenth ;  among  writers, 
Machiavelli,  Erasmus,  Gibbon,  —  are  different 
types  of  this  wide  variety. 

Such  characters  are  apt  to  appear  at  the  meet- 
ing-point of  the  old  and  the  new,  when  faith  in  an  old 
religion  or  institution  or  custom  is  on  the  decline, 
and  numbers  are  arrayed  against  it,  as  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era  against  polytheism, 
and  in  the  sixteenth  century  against  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Such  periods  develop  three  distinct  types 
of  character  in  relation  to  old  and  new,  —  first,  the 
destructive  radical,  who  wishes  to  abolish  the  old, 
the  sooner  and  more  completely,  the  better ;  second, 
the  believing  and  conscientious  conservative,  who 
clings  to  it  with  unswerving  devotion ;  and  third, 


IRONY.  321 

between  these  two  a  class  of  men,  embracing  often 
the  best  culture  and  largest  thought  of  the  time 
(of  men,  I  say,  not  often  of  women,  —  they  are 
usually  afliancecl  to  one  or  the  other  side),  who 
are  not  in  full  sympathy  with  cither  direction. 
They  see  ])igotry,  stupidity,  antiquated  error,  on 
one  side,  and  they  also  see  vulgar  adventure,  pruri- 
ency, and  shallowness  on  the  other.  They  fully 
apprehend  whatever  is  true  in  the  new  ideas,  and 
do  them  full  justice  in  their  private  thought ;  but 
they  also  find  meanings  in  the  old  which  those 
who  renounce  it  do  not  perceive,  and  which  give  it 
a  right  to  be.  At  the  same  time  they  feel  that  the 
forms  which  embody  those  meanings  are  outgrown, 
that  much  in  the  old  is  obsolete  and  will  not  ally 
itself  with  a  vigorous  future.  They  are  nominally 
in  it,  but  cannot  heartily  embrace  it.  As  little  can 
they  lend  themselves  to  the  turbulent  and  vulgar 
new.  They  fancy  they  see  all  there  is  in  both 
interests,  and  a  good  deal  more  besides.  Now, 
whether  it  is  native  irony  of  character  that  dictates 
this  position,  or  whether  the  position  develops  the 
irony,  it  is  here  that  irony  is  most  at  home.  An 
ironical  treatment  of  the  claims  of  both  parties  is 
the  natural  resource  of  one  who  feels  himself 
raised  above  either,  and  is  equally  indifferent  to 
both.  The  author  of  the  essay  on  the  "  Irony  of 
Sophocles,"  already  referred  to,  remarks  :  ''  There 
21 


322  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  always  a  slight  cast  of  irony  in  tlie  grave,  calm, 
respectful  attention  impartially  bestowed  by  an 
intelligent  judge  on  two  contending  parties  who 
are  pleading  their  causes  before  him  with  all  tlie 
earnestness  of  deep  conviction  and  excited  feel- 
ing." He  sees  ''  that  the  right  and  the  truth  lie 
on  neither  side  exclusively  ;  .  .  .  both  have  plausi- 
ble claims  and  specious  reasons  to  allege,  though 
each  is  too  much  blinded  by  prejudice  and  passion 
to  do  justice  to  the  views  of  his  adversary."  This 
is  the  position  I  have  in  view.  The  ironist  speaks 
sometimes  in  the  spirit  of  one  party,  and  sometimes 
of  the  other,  but  always  with  that  mental  reserve, 
that  arrilre-penhee  in  which  the  essence  of  irony  con- 
sists. From  which  it  appears  that  irony  of  charac- 
ter is  the  negative  and  polar  antithesis  of  moral 
enthusiasm.  All  the  advantages  are  wanting  to  it 
which  moral  enthusiasm  gives.  The  ironist  is  not 
an  eloquent  man.  Eloquence  supposes  earnest  ad- 
vocacy ;  but  earnest  advocacy  is  denied  to  him.  He 
is  not  advocate,  but  judge.  That  man  will  never 
pow^erfully  sway  the  popular  mind  who  sees  both 
sides.  On  the  other  hand,  the  earnest  advocate 
can  never  move  him,  the  ironist.  There  is  no 
intellectual  rapport  between  him  and  the  popular 
speaker,  in  whom  is  no  reserve.  He  comes  to 
despise  eloquence,  seeing  behind  the  fervid  out- 
pouring nothing  more  than  the  sentiment  of  the 


IRONY.  323 

hour,  and  noting  how  the  cup  is  emptied  with  the 
speech. 

From  want  of  moral  enthusiasm  it  woukl  not  be 
always  safe  to  infer  want  of  faith  in  humanity,  or 
want  of  interest  in  human  weal.  The  ironist  may 
believe  that  natural  growth,  not  violent  change,  is 
the  way  to  accomplish  that  end,  and  that  every 
attempt  to  anticipate  the  natural  course  of  events 
retards  the  growth  of  good.  You  may  carry  your 
pet  measure ;  but  what  if  you  lose  more  than  you 
gain  by  it  ?  Abolish  one  evil,  and  you  start  anotlier. 
Luther,  when  he  saw  what  a  wide  door  of  abuse 
the  Reformation  had  opened,  said,  with  a  sigh,  that 
attempting  to  reform  mankind  was  like  trying  to 
seat  a  drunken  man  on  horseback :  you  help  him 
on  one  side,  and  lie  tumbles  on  the  other.  More- 
over, the  ironist  may  think  that  human  destiny 
follows  a  prescribed  course,  which  all  our  fussing, 
our  conventions  and  legislation,  cannot  further  or 
change,  but  only  perhaps  embarrass  and  delay.  By 
shaking  the  tree  you  do  not  ripen  the  fruit,  but 
may  cause  it  to  fall  untimely  to  the  ground. 
Goethe  thought  that  Luther  had  put  back  for 
centuries  the  cause  of  human  progress.  The  error 
here  lies  in  not  perceiving  that  these  very  agita- 
tions are  a  part  of  the  prescribed  course ;  that 
Luther  and  Protestantism  were  not  a  wilful  inter- 
polation, but  a  necessary  product  of  the  time  ;  that 


324  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

whatever  was  put  back  by  it  was  put  back  divinely  ; 
that  you  cannot  break  the  continuity  of  history, 
beino;  yourself  but  one   of  the  links. 

The  ironies  thus  far  discussed  are  intellectual 
and  moral  traits  ;  their  common  element  is  re- 
serve, or  the  thought  behind.  By  a  subtle  associ- 
ation, not  easily  defined,  the  term  is  applied  to 
phases  of  life  in  which  this  element  does  not 
appear,  and  where  the  irony  is  not  in  the  thought, 
but  in  the  fact. 

Irony  in  Tldigion.  —  The  history  of  religion 
exhibits  ironies  whose  point  consists  in  a  glaring 
contradiction  of  theory  and  practice,  or  a  conflict 
of  faith  and  will.  When  the  Emperor  Frederick 
the  Second  visited  Jerusalem,  after  a  treaty  with 
the  Sultan  Kameel,  which  gave  that  city,  under 
certain  conditions,  to  the  Christians,  the  Emir 
Schems-Eddin  was  charged  to  see  that  no  of- 
fence was  given  to  the  Christian  sovereign  by 
the  Moslem  in  the  practice  of  their  religion.  It 
chanced  that  the  muezzin,  who  called  the  faithful 
to  prayer,  was,  during  that  visit,  to  have  read, 
as  the  lesson  for  the  day,  a  verse  of  the  Koran 
whicli  denied  the  divinity  of  Christ.  To  meet  the 
difficulty  the  Emir  suppressed  the  ceremony  alto- 
gether. The  Emperor,  who  cared  little  for  the 
dogma,   was    more    disappointed    at    missing    an 


IRONY.  325 

observance  he  was  curious  to  witness,  than  gratified 
with  the  compliment  paid  to  his  rehgion,  —  which 
compliment,  however,  he  returned  by  sharply  re- 
buking a  Christian  soldier  who  had  just  entered 
the  mosque  of  Omar  with  a  copy  of  the  Gospels. 
And  thus  the  two  religions,  in  theory  bound  to 
urge  their  own  doctrine,  denied  it  in  the  persons  of 
their  chief  representatives,  bandying  compliments 
with  reciprocal  disclaimers,  and  exemplifying  what 
may  be  called  the  irony  of  faith. 

Ancient  polytheism  sometimes  betrayed  its  hol- 
lowness  by  ludicrous  revulsions  of  distrust  or 
ill  will. 

The  Emperor  Augustus  had  lost  two  fleets  in 
two  successive  naval  engagements.  To  signalize 
his  displeasure  with  the  god  of  the  sea,  he  forbade 
the  image  of  Neptune  to  be  borne  with  those  of 
other  gods  in  the  next  triumphal  procession. 

Suetonius  relates  that  when  the  people  of  Rome 
heard  of  the  death  of  their  favorite,  Germanicus, 
they  rushed  into  the  temples  and  punished  the 
gods  with  stoning.  This  putting  of  your  god  on 
his  good  behavior,  treating  him  according  to  the 
good  or  evil  fortune  experienced  by  the  worship- 
per, is  a  part  of  that  profound  insincerity,  or 
rather  of  that  latent  fetichism,  which  characterizes 
the  vulgar  religion  under  all  dispensations.  The 
principle  of  fetichism  is  the  practice  of  religion  as 
a  charm  to  secure  good  fortune. 


326  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Plutarch  reports  of  the  infamous  Sulla,  that, 
being  in  imminent  danger  of  defeat  in  a  battle 
before  the  gates  of  Rome,  he  took  from  his  bosom 
a  little  golden  image  of  P3^thian  Apollo,  and,  kiss- 
ing it,  said :  "  0  Pythian  Apollo,  who  hast  given 
Cornelius  Sulla  the  victory  in  so  many  engage- 
ments, hast  thou  at  last  brought  him  to  the  gates 
of  Rome,  there  to  perish  ignominiously  with  his 
fellow-citizens  ? "  The  petulance  of  this  heathen 
prayer  is  paralleled  by  many  a  Christian  remon- 
strance, addressed  to  the  Christian's  God,  in  like 
emergencies.  Robert  the  Monk,  the  chronicler  of 
the  First  Crusade,  relates  that  Guy,  the  brother  of 
Bohemond,  in  the  terrible  disaster  which  befell 
the  army  of  Godfrey  at  Antioch,  cried :  "  Almighty 
God,  where  is  your  virtue  ?  If  you  are  omnipotent, 
wliy  do  you  permit  these  things  ?  Who  will  ever 
be  a  soldier  of  yours,  or  a  pilgrim  again  ?" 

The  irony  which  mixes  belief  with  unbelief,  cal- 
culation with  devotion  in  religion,  seems  to  have 
reached  its  perfection  in  Louis  the  Eleventh  of 
France,  whose  devout  intercourse  with  his  favorite 
saints,  or  rather  with  their  images  stuck  in  liis 
hat,  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  so  effectively  portrayed. 

Another  sort  of  religious  irony  is  the  well-known 
travesty  indulged  by  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Age 
of  her  own  most  solemn  rites.  This  enormity  pre- 
vailed in  various  forms,  in  all  of  which  mocking 


IRONY.  ii-i 

of  religion  was  the  leading  idea.  There  was  the 
Feast  of  Asses,  in  which  an  ass  covered  with 
sacerdotal  robes  was  led  into  the  church,  and  a 
mass  performed  before  him,  with  burlesque  cere- 
monies and  hideous  music.  There  was  the  Glutton 
]\Iass,  when  the  people  went  to  church  to  cram 
themselves  with  meat  and  drink.  Another  variety 
of  sacrilegious  pastime  was  the  election  and  in- 
stallation of  the  ''  Pope  of  Fools,"  or  "  Lord  of 
Misrule."  On  these  occasions  the  rioters  would 
disguise  themselves  in  grotesque  costumes,  turn  the 
church  into  a  hunting-ground,  play  at  dice  upon 
the  altars,  and  commit  every  conceivable  extrava- 
gance. The  clergy,  it  would  seem,  not  only  tolera- 
ted, but  encouraged,  these  fooleries.  In  fact,  it  was 
the  irony  of  the  Church  herself,  the  Nemesis  of 
faith,  religion  resenting  its  own  sanctities. 

The  Irony  of  Fate.  —  In  a  different,  and  not  alto- 
gether legitimate,  sense,  the  word  "  irony  "  is  used 
to  characterize  certain  disasters  and  tragedies  of  life. 
We  speak  of  the  irony  of  fate.  The  phrase  is  ap- 
plied to  events  which  have  a  retributory  character, 
and  in  which  the  retribution,  from  its  fitness  and 
unexpected  congruity,  looks  like  design  ;  events  in 
which,  independently  of  any  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  a  conscious  Nemesis  appears  to  have  ad- 
justed the  occurrence  to  the  person  concerned. 
Saul,  in  Hebrew   history,   having   driven    out   the 


328  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

witches  from  Israel,  is  constrained  at  last  to  con- 
sult one  himself,  and  from  her  conjuration  learns 
his  doom ;  Julius  Caesar,  having  conquered  Pom- 
pey  at  Pharsalus,  falls  at  the  base  of  Pompey's 
statue ;   Dion,  who 

"  Overleaped  the  eternal  bars, 
And  following  guides  whose  craft  holds  no  consent 
With  aught  that  breathes  the  ethereal  element," 

caused  the  assassination  of  Heraclides,  perishes 
by  the  hands  of  assassins ;  Boniface  the  Eighth 
meets  his  fate  through  the  instrumentality  of  8ci- 
arra  Colonna,  whose  house  he  had  spoiled ;  Robes- 
pierre ends  his  career  with  the  guillotine,  to  which 
he  had  sent  so  many  of  his  fellow-citizens;  Napo- 
leon the  First,  who  tried  so  hard  to  shut  up 
England  in  her  own  island,  is  shut  up  by  England 
in  an  island  himself ;  South  Carolina,  to  make 
slavery  sure,  breaks  with  the  Union,  and  by  that 
means  loses  her  slaves. 

The  retribution  in  these  cases  takes  the  form 
of  moral  compensation ;  but  there  are  turns  and 
contradictions  in  human  destiny,  not  to  be  cla.^scd 
as  moral  retributions,  which  equally  illustrate  the 
irony  of  fate.  In  a  certain  town  in  Massachusetts, 
founded  by  Puritans  who  fled  from  prelacy,  the 
burial-ground  which  contains  their  bones  now 
affords  a  convenient  pathway  to  a  flourishing 
Catholic  church. 


IRONY.  329 

The  Irony  of  Nature.  —  We  began  with  the  irony 
of  spirit ;  let  us  round  the  swift  synopsis  with  a 
glance  at  the  ironies  of  Nature. 

As  such  I  reckon,  for  one  thing,  the  close  reserve 
with  which  Nature  baffles  the  scrutiny  of  science, 
and  hides  from  curious  eyes  the  final  secret  of 
her  births.  From  time  immemorial  the  inscruta- 
ble mother  has  been  playing  a  game  of  inverted 
blind-man's-buff  with  her  inquisitive  children.  She 
bandages  their  eyes,  and  bids  them  catch  her  if 
they  can.  Her  explorers  chase  her  hither  and 
thither,  but  their  eyes  are  holden  that  they  should 
not  know  her.  When  any  one  thinks  he  has  caught 
her,  it  is  only  a  part  of  her  drapery  which  she 
yields  to  his  clutches,  never  herself.  "  Science," 
says  the  Persian  myst'c,  "puts  her  finger  in  her 
mouth,  and  cries  because  the  mystery  of  being  will 
not  reveal  itself."  The  pliysiologist  searches  for 
the  secret  of  life.  Wliat  is  it  that  discriminates 
animated  from  inanimate  being?  Function.  In 
the  lowest  as  in  the  highest,  in  the  rhizopod  as  in 
the  angel,  it  is  function  that  distinguishes  life  from 
death.  But  where  is  the  functionary  ?  Where 
sits  the  performer  who  plays  the  many-stringed 
or  the  one-stringed  instrument  ?  No  dissection 
could  ever  show.  What  becomes  of  him  when  the 
instrument  stops  ?  No  observation  could  ever  re- 
port.     Performer    and    performance   are  indistin- 


330  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

guishably  one.  Between  the  instrument  played 
and  the  instrument  suddenly  stopped  there  is  no 
perceptible  difference,  except  the  fact  of  ability  or 
inability  still  to  perform.  Yet  is  the  difference 
infinite  between  life  and  death.  The  ontologist 
searclies  for  the  primal  substance.  Behind  all  the 
wrappers  that  envelop  it,  beneath  all  the  acts  that 
represent  it,  he  would  stand  face  to  face  with  the 
ultimate  fact.  Is  it  matter  ?  —  with  microscope  and 
knife  and  crucible  he  interrogates  sensible  forms ; 
is  it  spirit  ?  —  with  unsparing  analysis  he  interro- 
gates consciousness :  and  finds  himself  at  last,  in 
whatever  direction  he  seeks,  after  all  liis  probing, 
face  to  face  with  —  nothing.  And  "nothing"  is 
the  answer  with  which  the  irony  of  Nature  re- 
sponds alike  to  physicist  and  metaphysician  when 
the  search  transcends  the  prescribed  bound.  The 
Ixion  of  Greek  mythology  is  an  ever-fit  sym- 
bol of  all  endeavors  to  lay  hold  of  the  absolute. 
Ixion  is  in  love  with  Juno,  the  queen  of  the  empy- 
rean ;  he  thinks  to  embrace  her,  and  embraces  a 
cloud.  Transcendentalism  experiences  the  same 
illusion,  and  experiences  something  of  Ixion's  pen- 
alty of  endless  rotation,  forever  traversing  the 
same  cycle,  from  spirit  to  matter,  and  round  to 
spirit  again,  on  the  wheel  to  which  her  serpentine 
subtleties  have  bound  her. 

"  Tortos  Ixionis  angues 
Immanemque  rotam." 


IRONY.  331 

Philosophy  chases  ;  Nature  hides,  forever  inviting, 
forever  baffling,  investigation.  "  Nature,"  wrote 
Goethe,  in  the  midst  of  his  researches,  *'  we  are 
surrounded  and  clasped  by  her,  unable  to  step 
out  of  her,  and  unable  to  go  farther  into  her. 
Unbidden  and  unwarned,  she  takes  us  up  into  her 
circling  dance,  and  whirls  herself  forth  with  us 
until  we  are  exhausted  and  sink  from  her  arms. 
.  .  .  We  live  in  the  midst  of  her,  and  are  strangers 
to  her ;  she  converses  Avith  us  unceasingly,  and 
never  betrays  her  secret.  We  act  upon  her  con- 
tinually, and  yet  have  no  power  over  her.  She 
lives  altogether  in  her  children  ;  and  the  mother, 
where  is  she  ? " 

A  deeper  irony  lurks  in  the  swift  termination 
with  which  Nature  limits  all  beauty,  satisfaction, 
life. 

All  beauty  resides  in  surfaces  merely  ;  it  is  con- 
stituted by  lines  and  angles,  of  which  the  least 
disturbance  dissipates  the  vision.  All  natural 
beauty  is  a  phantasmagory,  an  unreal  mockery, 
to  which  a  sentiment  in  the  soul  of  the  beholder 
gives  all  its  effect.  The  glories  of  sunset,  the 
witchery  of  rose  and  gold  that  lures  like  the  gates 
of  heaven,  —  what  is  it  but  vibrations  of  an  invisi- 
ble ether  struggling  through  moisture  and  made 
visible  by  impediment  ?  Obstruction  in  the  object, 
abstraction    in    the    subject,    explains    the    whole 


332  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

secret  of  the  gorgeous  cheat.  The  moon-silvered 
expanse  of  ocean  seen  from  your  balcony  at  New- 
port or  Nahant,  —  a  vision  that  draws  the  soul  from 
the  body  and  laps  it  m  elysium,  —  what  is  it  but  a 
remnant  of  that  setting  sun  received  second-hand 
and  mixed  with  unsavory   brine  ? 

The  moon  on  the  wave  is  beautiful,  and  beauti- 
ful the  landscape  bathed  in  its  light.  But  en- 
counter that  orb  at  dead  of  night  on  a  desolate 
road,  when  past  the  full,  just  risen  above  the  hori- 
zon and  level  with  your  eye,  gibbous,  lurid,  por- 
tentous, —  what  irony  glares  in  it  I  what  a  tale  it 
tells  of  a  blasted,  worn-out,  ruined  world  ! 

All  human  beauty  is  but  skin  deep,  and  scarcely 
that.  A  little  roughening  of  the  cuticle  will  mar 
the  fairest  face  and  change  beauty  to  hideousness. 
What  fearful  irony  leers  upon  us  from  the  human 
skull !  This  was  the  head,  this  the  divine  counte- 
nance, of  some  Helen,  some  Aspasia  or  Cleopatra, 
some  Agnes  of  Meran  or  Mary  of  Scotland,  on 
wdiose  eyelids  hung  the  destinies  of  nations,  for 
whose  lips  the  lords  of  the  earth  thought  the 
world  well  lost,  from  whose  lineaments  painters 
drew  their  presentment  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven. 
How  was  this  cruel  metamorphosis  wrought  ?  Sim- 
ply by  stripping  off  the  surface.  The  miraculous 
bulb  was  peeled,  a  layer  of  tissue  removed,  and 
behold   the    grinning    horror  I    "  Get    you   to   my 


IRONY.  333 

lady's    chamber  ;   tell   her,  let   her  paint  an  inch 
thick,  to  this  favor  she  must  come." 

The  saying  of  the  poet,  "  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a 
joy  forever,"  is  true  only  when  predicated  of  the 
image  in  the  mind  and  of  intellectual  contempla- 
tion. The  beauty  of  things  is  a  phantom,  the 
enjoyment  the  senses  have  of  it  a  slippery  illusion. 
A  beautiful  phenomenon  is  actually  seen  but  for  a 
moment.  A  little  while,  and,  though  present  to 
the  eye,  it  is  seen  no  more,  as  a  strain  of  music 
ceases  to  be  heard  when  unduly  prolonged.  Only 
the  thought  survives  the  image  in  the  mind.  As 
mere  sensation,  the  enjoyment  of  beauty  is  fleeting, 
like  all  our  enjoyments,  —  the  more  intense,  the 
more  evanescent.  It  is  a  bitter  irony  of  Nature 
that,  while  grief  may  last  for  days  and  months,  all 
pleasure  is  momentary.  The  best  that  life  yields  in 
that  kind  is  an  equilibrium  of  mild  content,  a  poise 
between  joy  and  pain.  Disturb  that  equilibrium 
by  dropping  a  sorrow  into  tlie  scale,  and  long  time 
is  required  to  restore  the  balance.  Disturb  the 
equilibrium  by  adding  a  new  joy,  and  how  soon 
the  beam  is  straight !  We  get  used  and  indifferent 
to  our  joys ;  we  do  not  get  used  to  our  pains.  And 
yet  Nature  can  bear  a  greater  accession  of  sorrow 
than  of  pleasure.  Strange  to  say,  the  heart  will 
sooner  break  with  joy  than  grief.  On  the  plane  of 
physical   experience   there   are   painful  sensations 


334  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

which  beyond  a  certain  point  of  aggravation  are 
fatal,  as  the  strain  of  the  rack  has  sometimes 
proved ;  and  there  are  pleasurable  sensations  which 
would  be  fatal  if  greatly  intensified  or  prolonged. 
But  note  this  curious  fact,  that  before  the  limit  of 
endurance  in  the  latter  case  is  reached,  the  pleas- 
ure turns  to  pain,  —  which  shows  how  limited  is 
physical  enjoyment.  Bodily  pain,  on  the  contrary, 
never  breaks  into  any  falsetto  of  pleasure,  but 
keeps  "due  on"  its  dolorous  road,  till  anguish 
deepens  into  death. 

Of  mental  emotions,  joy  in  itself  is  more  fatal 
than  sorrow ;  the  only  reason  why  men  oftener 
pine  to  death  than  rejoice  to  death,  is  because 
occasions  of  extreme  grief  are  more  frequent  than 
occasions  of  excessive  joy. 

"  If  ever,"  says  Faust  in  his  bargain  with 
Mephistopheles,  —  "  if  ever  I  shall  say  to  the  pass- 
ing moment,  '  Tarry,  thou  art  so  beautiful,'  then 
you  may  lay  fetters  on  me,  and  I  will  gladly  go  to 
perdition." 

"  Le  bonheur,"  says  Yoltaire,  "  n'est  qu'un  reve, 
et  la  douleur  est  reelle ;  il  y  a  quatre-vingts  ans 
que  je  I'eprouve." 

Meanwhile  Nature  pursues  her  course,  regard- 
less alike  of  joy  and  grief.  No  sympathy  has  she 
with  sad  or  gay,  no  care  to  adjust  her  aspects  with 
our  experience,  her  seasons  with  our  need,  or  to 


I 


IRONY.  335 

match  with  her  sky  the  weather  in  the  soiih  She 
smiles  her  blandest  on  the  recent  battle-field,  where 
the  hopes  of  a  thousand  homes  lie  withered  ;  and 
she  smites  with  her  tornadoes  the  ungathered  har- 
vest in  which  the  bread  of  a  thousand  homes  has 
ripened.  She  refuses  a  glint  of  her  sunlight  to 
the  ship  befogged  on  a  lee  shore,  and  pours  it  in 
full  splendor  on  the  finished,  irreparable  wreck. 
Prodigal  of  life,  she  is  every  moment  teeming  with 
births  innumerable  ;  and  still  the  drift  of  death 
accumulates  on  the  planet.  This  earth  of  our 
abode  is  all  compact  of  extinct  creations,  every 
creature  on  it  a  sarcophagus  of  perished  lives, 
every  existence  purchased  and  maintained  by  sum- 
less  deaths.  The  outstretched  landscape  refulgent 
in  the  bright  June  morning,  dew-gemmed,  vocal 
with  the  ecstasies  of  welcoming  birds,  suggestive 
of  eternal  youth,  is  a  funeral  pageant,  a  part  of  the 
fatal  procession  which  takes  us  with  it  as  we  gaze. 
The  fresh  enamel  laid  on  by  the  laughing  Hours, 
the  festive  sheen,  the  universal  face  of  joy,  "  the 
bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky,"  when  analyzed  turns 
to  a  thin  varnish  spread  over  mould  and  corrup- 
tion. And  amid  the  myriad-voiced  psalm  of  life 
that  makes  the  outgoings  of  the  morning  glad,  is 
heard,  if  we  listen,  the  sullen  ground-tone  of 
mortality  with  which  Nature  accompanies  all  her 
music. 


336  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Out  of  all  these  glooms  into  which  we  have 
strayed,  and  out  of  the  ironies  of  Nature  and  life, 
there  is  no  escape  by  the  avenues  of  thought,  but 
only  by  turning  from  thought  to  deed.  The  social 
and  moral .  activities  for  those  who  live  in  them 
neutralize  or  else  compensate  these  intellectual 
sorrows,  and  keep  the  importunities  of  Momus  in 
check.  It  belongs  to  the  moral  sentiment,  or 
rather  it  belongs  to  the  morally  regenerate  will, 
to  create  for  itself  a  world  into  which  no  irony 
can  enter  but  the  blessed  irony  of  God,  the  reserve 
which  is  not  limitation  and  negation  and  death, 
but  yea  behind  yea,  and  life  upon  life.  Love  is 
the  anointing  of  the  eyes  which  transfigures  Ere- 
bus itself  into  yea,  or  makes  it  invisible.  Every 
really  good  deed,  every  genuine  act  of  self-sacrifice, 
is  immortal,  a  birth  from  the  heart  of  the  Divine ; 
the  everlasting  morning  is  in  it,  the  gates  of  hell 
are  powerless,  and  Mephistopheles  leers  in  vain. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       337 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF    FETICHISM. 

[From  the  Uuitarian  Review,  March,  1881.] 

TTMERSON  in  one  of  his  poems  complains 
^     that  — 

"Things  are  in  the  saddle, 
And  ride  mankind." 

The  saying  is  true  in  other  senses  than  that  of  the 
exigence  of  material  interests,  which  is  what  the 
poet  intended  by  it. 

Mankind,  the  world  over,  in  divers  ways  are  rid- 
den by  "  things,"  possessed  by  them,  enthralled  by 
them.  Nor  is  it  always  a  preponderant  material- 
ism that  imposes  this  thrall.  Materialism  is  not 
the  normal  faith  of  human  kind,  but  an  aberration. 
There  are  philosophers  who  ignore  the  agency  of 
spirit  in  phenomenal  nature,  and  there  are  world- 
lings wlio  rest  in  sensual  satisfactions,  or  satisfac- 
tions derived  from  material  values  ;  but  naturally 
man  is  more  spiritualist  than  materialist,  and  there 
is  an  interest  in  things,  and  an  action  of  things  on 
the  mind,  which  attests  the  supremacy  of  spirit  in 
human  life.  Every  thing  was  first  a  thought,  and 
only  thinking  makes  things. 

The  savage,  groping  after  Deity,  makes  a  god  of 

22 


338  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

some  object  which  tradition  or  his  own  fancy  has 
consecrated, —  a  block,  an  elephant's  tooth,  a  mis- 
shapen stone,  a  tree  struck  by  lightning,  —  things 
which  possess  no  virtue  or  value  but  what  they  de- 
rive from  his  thought.  These  are  instances  of  that 
creature-worship  which  constitutes  a  stage  of  re- 
ligion in  the  savage  mind.  Is  the  savage  then  a 
materialist  ?  Are  these  homages  proof  of  that 
utter  want  of  a  spiritual  sense  which  vulgar  opin- 
ion ascribes  to  him  ?  On  the  contrary,  they  attest 
an  overruling  spiritualism,  which  refuses  to  see  in 
what  we  call  matter  mere  inert  substance,  or  in 
brutes  mere  animated  dust,  but  feels  itself,  even 
there,-  confronted  by  a  conscious  and  an  awful 
Presence.  The  savage  feels  his  littleness  and  help- 
lessness in  view  of  the  great  outside,  —  the  Not-me, 
which  everywhere  surrounds  him.  Awed  by  the 
overweight  of  visible  Nature,  he  divines  the  pres- 
ence of  an  invisible  Power.  In  his  attempt  to  lay 
hold  of  this  Power,  he  fails  to  disengage  it  from 
the  visible  All  which  embodies  it.  He  seems  to 
himself  to  catch  its  aspect,  here  and  there,  in  some 
object  which  strikes  him  as  possessing  peculiar 
significance,  which  individualizes,  so  to  speak,  the 
all-present  mystery,  and  thrusts  it  on  his  fancy  or 
his  fear. 

This  is  religion  in  —  I  will  not  say  its  earliest, 
for  that  is  a  disputed  point  —  but  religion  in  its 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       839 

crudest  state.  Yet  how  near  to  the  pantheism  of 
some  of  the  most  cultured  and  profoundest  minds  ! 
We  call  it  Fetichism,  —  a  term  introduced  by  De 
Brosses,  who  coined  it  from  the  Portuguese  fetisso^ 
an  amulet,  or  charm.  T\\q  fetisso  is  not  necessarily 
a  god  ;  but  the  tribes  most  addicted  to  the  use  of 
these  things  are  those  with  whom  creature-worship 
chiefly  prevails. 

Fetichism  is  the  worship  of  things,  of  brute  crea- 
tures, animate  or  inanimate,  —  worship  of  them, 
not  for  their  material  value,  or  any  use  which  they 
serve,  but  for  the  demon's  sake  supposed  to  reside 
in  them.  All  this  is  so  foreign  to  our  conception 
of  Godhead,  so  abhorrent  from  all  our  traditions,  as 
to  seem  almost  a  wilful  aberration.  Theologians, 
possessed  with  the  notion  of  man's  declension  from 
primitive  reason,  find  here  a  confirmation  of  that 
hypothesis.  Accordingly,  fetichism  has  become  a 
term  of  reproach.  It  stands  in  the  popular  appre- 
hension for  something  monstrous  and  utterly  vile, 
as  contrasted  with  the  uses  of  revealed  religion. 
But  these  are  not  the  test  by  which  it  should  be 
judged.  Let  it  rather  be  compared  with  the  stark 
irreligion,  the  crass  sensualism  of  either  savage  or 
civilized  man.  I  wish  to  place  it  in  a  more  favor- 
able light,  to  emphasize  its  better  side. 

Fetichism  is  not  materialism.  It  is  one  of  the 
first  proofs  of  a  spirit  in  man  akin  to  the  divine, 


340  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

that  he  can  thus  invest  inferior,  and  even  inanimate, 
creatures  with  the  attributes  of  Deity.  That  man, 
himself  the  image  of  Godhead,  can  see  divinity  in 
stocks  and  stones,  can  adore  the  superhuman  in  a 
crocodile  or  the  stump  of  a  tree,  attests  the  vitality 
of  the  God-seeking  instinct,  which,  for  want  of 
direction,  in  the  absence  of  the  true  light,  is  driven 
to  make  a  god  of  such  objects  as  these,  laying  hold 
of  whatever  by  accident  of  mood  or  association  has 
hit  its  dim  presentiment  with  a  fancied  air  of, 
supernaturalness. 

In  a  more  advanced  stage  of  humanity  fetichism 
sometimes  assumes  a  different  character.  Where 
it  does  not  rise  into  symbolism,  it  may  sink  into 
sensualism,  mechanical  converse  with  idols,  like 
the  terajjhhn  which  Rachel  abstracted  from  her 
father  Laban,  or  like  the  gods  which  Birmingham 
is  said  to  manufacture  for  the  use  of  the  Hindoos. 

But  the  fetichist  proper,  the  creature-worshipping 
savage,  is  no  sensualist,  is  no  materialist.  He  sees 
spirit  everywhere.  The  whole  external  world  to 
liim  is  magical,  demoniacal.  Every  senseless  ob- 
ject is  informed  with  life.  He  has  not  yet  learned 
to  distinguish  between  person  and  thing.  All  is 
person  that  happens  to  attract  his  special  regard. 

I  find  here  proof  of  an  inborn  spiritualism,  or 
call  it  idealism,  or  immaterialism,  which  shows  itself 
wherever  human  nature  is  found  in  its  aboriginal 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICH  ISM.       341 

simplicity.  The  savage  is  reproduced  iii  every 
child.  The  child  beats  the  inanimate  object  that 
gave  him  pain.  Theoretically,  he  knows  that 
the  hurt  was  not  willed  by  the  thing  that  hurt ; 
but  passion  outruns  thought,  and,  acting  on  an 
earlier,  hylozoic  conception,  endows  the  senseless 
offender  with  sense  and  purpose.  Scarcely  the 
mature  man  represses  resentment  at  the  misbeha- 
vior, seemingly  wilful,  of  the  matter  he  deals  with, 
wdien  wood  or  metal  baffles  his  shaping  hand.  He 
w^ould  not  seriously  tax  the  elements  with  unkind- 
ness,  but  the  sudden  gust  wdiich  plucks  his  hat 
from  his  head,  or  turns -his  umbrella  inside  out,  af- 
flicts him  with  almost  a  sense  of  personal  malice ; 
so  instinctively  do  men  associate  will  with  motion, 
and  person  with  w^ill.  Language  itself  bears  wit- 
ness of  this  tendency  in  such  phrases  as  "-  the 
freaks  of  the  lightning,"  "  the  wind  bloweth  where 
it  listeth,"  and  in  our  personification  of  sun,  and 
moon,  and  ships. 

Caspar  Hauser,  the  Bavarian  youth,  who,  reared 
in  solitude  and  darkness,  with  no  instruction  until 
his  eighteenth  year,  was  then  thrust  upon  the 
world,  physically  full-grown,  but  intellectually  an 
infant,  is  a  perfect  example  of  this  simplicity  of 
the  natural  man,  which  knows  no  Cartesian  dual- 
ism in  nature,  but  sees  volition  and  spirit  in  all 
things.      ''  He  believed,"  says  Feuerbach,  "•  every 


342  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

motion  which  he  witnessed  in  any  object  to  be 
spontaneous.  If  a  sheet  of  paper  was  blown  by 
the  wind,  he  thought  it  had  run  away  from  the 
table  by  an  imi3ulse  of  its  own.  He  believed  that 
the  tree  of  its  own  will  moved  its  leaves  and  its 
branches.  The  tree  to  him  was  a  sensitive  being ; 
and  the  boy  who  struck  its  trunk  with  a  stick  pro- 
voked his  anger  for  giving  it  pain.  He  conceived 
that  the  balls  of  a  bowling-alley  ran  voluntarily 
along  the  boards,  and  that,  when  they  stopped,  it 
was  because  they  were  tired."  It  was  deemed  ex- 
pedient to  treat  this  young  man  at  first  as  a  child. 
Some  toy  horses  were  given  him  to  play  with.  He 
could  not  believe  that  they  were  not  living  crea- 
tures. He  held  his  bread  to  them ;  and  when  his 
keeper  tried  to  make  him  understand  that  they 
could  not  eat,  he  pointed  to  the  crumbs  which 
stuck  in  their  mouths  as  proof  that  they  did.  One 
of  the  horses  had  no  bridle.  He  made  a  bridle  for 
it,  and  spent  two  days  in  trying  to  persuade  it  to 
open  its  mouth  to  receive  the  bit.  "  From  this  and 
other  circumstances,"  says  his  biographer,  "  it  ap- 
peared that  in  his  infantile  soul  ideas  of  animate 
and  inanimate,  organic  and  inorganic,  natural  and 
artificial,  were  entirely  confused." 

The  intellectual  condition  of  the  savage  resem- 
bles that  of  Caspar  Hauser,  as  described  in  Feuer- 
bach's   sketch.     He    sees   volition,   conscious   life, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       343 

personality,  —  what  wonder  if  Deity  also  !  —  in 
inanimate  things. 

Advancing  humanity  soon  outgrows  this  illusion. 
Yet  watch  a  little  girl  at  play  with  her  doll,  and 
see  in  the  nursery,  in  the  bosom  of  civilization,  an 
example  of  that  deep  instinct  of  personification 
which  passionate  contemplation  of  an  object,  with 
suspended  reason,  elicits,  and  which  forms  the 
fundamental  principle  of  fetichism. 

It  needs  for  this  end  no  elaborate  carving  or 
painting,  no  porcelain  puppet  from  the  toy-shop. 
Take  a  roll  of  cloth,  arrange  it  into  a  rude  simili- 
tude of  the  human  figure,  make  at  one  end  with  a 
stroke  of  the  pen  two  circles  with  central  dots  for 
the  eyes,  an  angle  for  the  nose,  a  straight  line  for 
the  mouth,  —  a  rag  baby,  —  and  give  it  to  the 
child.  Straightway  she  endows  it  with  life  ;  she 
passionately  caresses  it,  converses  with  it,  credits 
it  with  consciousness  and  moral  idiosyncrasies, 
comforts  it  under  imaginary  sorrows,  rewards  its 
good  behavior,  punishes  its  faults,  and  is  incon- 
solable when  the  iconoclast  brotlier,  in  a  spirit  of 
mischief,  lays  violent  hands  on  her  pet. 

Beyond  the  walls  of  the  nursery,  and  past  the 
illusions  of  childhood,  there  are  moods  of  the  adult 
mind  when  inanimate  forms  exert  a  magical  influ- 
ence. Proteus,  Glaucus,  Arcadian  Pan,  in  Greek 
mythology,  owed  their  origin,  I  guess,  to  visions 


344  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

by  the  sea-shore  and  in  the  solitudes  of  the  forest, 
in  which  rocks  and  surf  and  gnarled  trees  seemed 
to  simulate  the  human  form.  Wordsworth,  in  his 
"  Peter  Bell,"  has  depicted  with  psychological  fidel- 
ity the  fascination  exercised  by  external  objects  on 
a  rude  and  depraved  nature :  — 

"The  moon  uneasy  looked,  and  dimmer; 
The  broad  blue  heavens  appeared  to  glimmer, 
And  the  rocks  staggered  all  around." 

There  is  a  kind  of  fetichism  —  another  form  of 
the  empire  of  things — which,  without  personifying 
inanimate  objects,  gives  them  a  factitious  value, 
irrespective  of  external  grace  or  any  intrinsic 
worth,  —  a  value  derived  from  personal  or  historic 
association. 

You  have  a  cane,  a  walking-stick  of  quite  ordi- 
nary aspect.  Apart  from  its  history  it  has  no 
market  value.  But  suppose  it  once  belonged  to 
the  poet  just  named,  was  cut  by  Wordsworth's 
own  hand  from  the  banks  of  Yarrow,  accompa- 
nied him  in  his  rambles  through  Westmoreland 
and  Cumberland,  supported  his  steps  in  climbing 
Skiddaw  and  in  pacing  the  shores  of  Derwent- 
water  and  Winandermere, —  would  you  exchange 
it  for  the  smartest  stick  from  the  shop  ?  Ordina- 
rily, things  are  valued  for  the  gratification  they 
afford,  or  may  be  the  means  of  affording,  to  the 
senses.     But  here  is  a  class  of  values  in  which  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       345 

senses  have  no  share,  giving  proof  of  a  radical 
idealism  in  human  natm-e  which  it  is  comforting 
to  til  ink  of. 

Mr.  Horace  Furness,  the  learned  Shakspearian, 
has  a  pair  of  gloves,  nowise  remarkable  for  beauty 
of  workmanship  or  convenience  of  wear,  —  plain 
buff-leather  gauntlets,  —  which  he  permits  to  be 
seen  only  through  a  glass  case,  protecting  them 
from  the  touch  of  profane  hands.  We  respect 
the  jealous  care  bestowed  on  these  garments  when 
we  learn  that  they  once  belonged  to  Shakspeare. 
Garrick  so  received  them ;  and  from  Garrick  down 
the  tradition  is  sure. 

We  need  to  distinguish  between  fetichism  and 
symbolism.  Both  are  homage  paid  to  things ;  but 
in  the  one  case  it  is  the  thing  itself,  for  its  own 
sake ;  in  the  other  it  is  the  thing  in  its  represen- 
tative capacity,  as  sign  of  something  else.  In 
fetichism  it  is  the  individual,  in  symbolism  it  is 
the  species,  that  counts.  In  fetichism  the  iden- 
tical object  admits  of  no  substitute  ;  in  symbolism, 
so  the  form  be  preserved,  the  individual  object  is 
of  no  importance.  The  Romanist  bows  to  the 
cross  without  asking  what  its  material  or  whence 
it  came.  The  form  is  all  that  he  considers  ;  any 
other  cross  would  do  as  well.  But  if  this  par- 
ticular cross  has  belonged  to  some  saint,  or  has  a 
history  which  consecrates  it  beyond  the  common, 


346  MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

then  it  is  not  only  symbol,  but  fetich.  To  the 
patriotic  mind  the  national  flag  is  sacred,  not  for 
the  rag's  sake,  but  for  what  it  represents  ;  and 
patriotism  is  not  offended  if,  when  this  particular 
flag  is  past  service,  it  is  burned  and  another  hoisted 
in  its  place.  But  if  this  individual  flag  is  associated 
with  some  hard-fought  field  or  some  famous  and 
beloved  captain,  then,  however  tattered  and  torn, 
it  is  zealously  preserved,  and  becomes  a  national 
fetich  forevermore. 

A  familiar  fetichism  is  the  passion  for  auto- 
graphs of  distinguished  men.  We  are  brought 
near  to  the  heroes  of  our  homage  by  the  contem- 
plation of  their  self-written  characters.  They  hold 
us  in  mortmain  by  a  tenure  which  strengthens 
with  age.  Near  a  thousand  dollars  have  been  paid 
for  an  autograph  of  Shakspeare.  A  handy  clerk 
will  trace  you  the  sixteen  or  seventeen  letters  pre- 
cisely in  the  style  of  the  master ;  nay,  they  may  be 
photographed  with  such  exactness  that  no  micro- 
scope can  detect  the  difference  between  the  copy 
and  the  original :  but  the  writing  has  comparatively 
no  value.  Fetichism  insists  on  the  actual  thing, 
as  if  some  mysterious  effluence  from  the  writer's 
hand  had  passed  into  it  and  charged  it  with  talis- 
manic  power. 

Saint  Paul  is  supposed  to  have  been  an  indiffer- 
ent chirographer,  employing  a  scribe  in  most  of  his 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       347 

letters  to  the  churches.  But  that  to  the  Galatians 
was  written  with  his  own  hand,  and  in  it  he  seems 
to  refer  to  his  ungainly  manuscript :  Ihere  iT7]\LK0i^ 
rypdjjbfxaa-Lv  eypayfra.  Suppose  we  had  that  identical 
Epistle,  preserved  by  some  wondrous  chance,  and 
now  first  brought  to  light  and  offered  for  sale  ! 
One  can  imagine  the  competition  which  such  an 
offer  would  provoke  among  the  libraries  of  Chris- 
tendom. One  can  hardly  imagine  the  sum  which 
the  British  Museum  would  be  willing  to  pay  for 
such  a  prize. 

Collections  of  virtuosi  in  all  kinds  foster  a 
fetichism  proper  to  themselves.  The  poorest  pic- 
ture which  Titian's  own  hands  could  be  proved  to 
have  painted,  the  merest  daub  of  his  yet  unprac- 
tised brush,  so  its  genuineness  could  be  authenti- 
cated beyond  question,  would  fetch  more  in  the 
market  than  a  perfect  copy  of  his  greatest  work, 
or  perhaps  than  any  masterpiece  of  contemporary 
art.  An  acquaintance  of  mine,  whom  fortune  had 
blessed  with  more  wealth  than  judgment,  showed 
me,  in  a  gallery  containing  some  excellent  paint- 
ings, a  few  on  which  he  set  especial  value,  and  for 
which,  as  purporting  to  be  the  works  of  old  mas- 
ters, he  had  paid  exorbitant  prices.  Not  one  of 
them  intrinsically  was  worth  the  frame  in  which  it 
hung.  Such  glamour  ugliness  takes  from  a  name. 
I  thought  of   the  Tradrj/jLara,  the  passion-pictures, 


348  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  early  Christendom,  which  escaped  the  reform- 
ing hand  of  the  Isaurian,  while  my  friend  re- 
counted to  me  the  evidence  of  their  genuineness, — 
the  old  story  of  impoverished  nobles  forced  to  part 
with  their  ancestral  treasures. 

The  fetichism  of  devotion  has  been  a  power  in 
history.  It  saved  Rome  at  the  loYv^cst  ebb  of  her 
fortunes  from  utter  extinction.  "  Like  Thebes,  or 
Babylon,  or  Carthage,"  says  Gibbon,  "  the  name  of 
Rome  might  have  been  erased  from  the  earth  if  tlic 
city  had  not  been  animated  by  a  vital  principle 
which  again  restored  her  to  honor  and  dominion. 
A  vague  tradition  was  embraced  that  two  Jewish 
teachers  —  a  tent-maker  and  a  fisherman  —  had 
formerly  been  executed  in  the  circus  of  Nero ;  and 
at  the  end  of  five  hundred  years  their  genuine  or 
fictitious  relics  were  adored  as  the  palladium  of 
Christian  Rome."  Whatever  may  be  thought  of 
the  style  and  spirit  of  this  passage,  so  character- 
istic of  the  great  historian,  it  is  certain  that  the 
life,  the  continued  existence,  of  Rome  in  her  de- 
cline depended  on  the  strong  attraction  of  the 
sacred  relics,  which  drew  Christian  pilgrims  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  to  the  citadel  of  their  faith. 
The  bones  of  the  martyrs  could  work  their  mira- 
cles only  on  the  spot ;  but  a  vigorous  traffic  was 
carried  on  in  iron  filings  from  the  chains  with 
which  it  was  claimed  that  Paul  and  Peter  had  been 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       349 

bound.  Pope  Gregory  I.  subsidized  the  lucrative 
trade  b}^  his  official  declaration  that  these  frag- 
ments of  iron  possessed  healing  virtues  equal  to 
those  of  tlie  bones  of  the  martyrs;  which  Gibbon 
thinks  quite  probable.  Some  of  the  principal  cities 
of  antiquity  were  protected  by  the  faith  of  their 
citizens  in  some  fetich  which  constituted  their  pal- 
ladium. It  was  the  quest  of  a  fetich,  the  "  Holy 
Grail,"  which  inspired  the  most  romantic  adven- 
tures of  chivalry.  It  was  the  exhibition  of  a  fetich, 
the  sacred  lance,  that  delivered  the  Christian  host 
miprisoned  within  the  walls  of  Antioch. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  there  were  in  Europe 
pretended  pieces  of  the  true  cross  enough  to  build 
a  seventy-four.  Suppose  one  actually  possessed  a 
fragment  of  the  wood  on  which  Jesus  hung,  — 
assured,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  by  incontro- 
vertible evidence,  —  what  virtue  would  there  be  in 
that  bloclc  above  any  other  piece  of  timber  of  the 
same  dimensions  and  fibre  ?  And  yet  what  price 
would  be  deemed  by  Christian  zeal  too  great  for 
such  a  relic  ?  A  very  respectable  kind  of  fetichism 
is  that,  —  more  respectable,  I  think,  than  the  utili- 
tarianism which  acknowledges  no  value  in  things 
beyond  their  material  capabilities. 

Scarcely  a  household  but  has  its  fetich,  —  some 
piece  of  ancestral  furniture,  a  chair,  a  dish,  a 
trinket,  —  some   heirloom    whose   value  is  not  in 


350  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

itself,  but  in  the  story  that  goes  with  it.  The  be- 
reaved mother  preserves  in  some  secret  receptacle 
a  lock  of  the  hair  of  the  child  that  died  in  infancy. 
The  sight  of  it  "  wounds  "  her 

*'  With  a  grief 
Whose  balsam  never  grew  ;  " 

but  she  has  treasured  it  none  the  less  through  all 
these  years,  and  still  treasures  it  with  that  pious 
fetichism  of  the  heart  which  defies  philosophy,  and 
w^hich  it  is  better  to  know  no  philosophy  than  to 
be  without. 

In  religion  fetichism  marks  the  lowest  grade  of 
spiritual  life.  It  was  a  great  and  decisive  step  in 
human  progress  when  visible  gods  were  exchanged 
for  invisible,  when  Powers  took  the  place  of  Things, 
and  the  hymns  of  the  Rig-Veda  lifted  the  soul  from 
the  veneration  of  natural  objects  to  the  adoration 
of  Nature  herself  as  manifest  in  her  elemental 
forces,  —  water,  wind,  and  fire.  Of  this  worship 
a  reminiscence  survives  in  our  personification  of 
Nature  as  a  female  divinity,  —  a  bit  of  heathenism 
which  Christian  theism  is  fain  to  tolerate. 

But  fetichism  itself,  as  I  have  endeavored  to 
show,  is  not  that  brutal  arrest  in  mere  sensualism 
which  theological  prejudice  is  wont  to  figure  it. 
In  fetichism  itself  there  is  a  kindling  of  the  spirit. 
If  "  the  heathen  in  his  blindness  bows  down  to 
wood  and  stone,"  it  is  because  he  has  the  God-idea 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.       351 

in  his  mind,  and  surmises  Deity  in  wood  and  stone. 
1  have  more  sympathy  with  him  than  with  the  sci- 
entist who  can  find  no  Deity  anywhere,  but  only 
molecules  and  blind  force.  All  fetichism  is  inter- 
esting ;  for  in  all  fetichism  there  is  precisely  that 
refusal  to  rest  in  the  visible  object,  that  faculty  of 
seeing  something  more  in  it  than  the  senses  cog- 
nize, which  differences  the  spiritual  man  from  the 
sensual.  It  is  not  the  block  as  such  that  makes 
the  fetich,  but  tlie  block  plus  the  unknown  behind 
it.  There  are  those  to  whom  the  thin.gs  they  con- 
verse with  are  final.  A  rose  is  a  rose,  a  brook  is 
a  brook.  There  arc  others  for  whom  these  things 
are  informed  with  ideal  import.  There  are  those 
to  whom  sunrise  and  sunset,  with  their  crimson 
draperies,  are  material  phenomena,  whose  signifi- 
cance is  quite  exhausted  when  science  has  ex- 
l»lained  their  cause.  There  are  others  to  whom 
sunrise  and  sunset  are  the  greetings  and  farewells 
of  a  coming  and  departing  God.  There  are  those 
who  see  in  amethyst  and  emerald  bits  of  quartz  or 
silex  stained  with  chromium  or  peroxide  of  iron, 
worth  so  much  a  carat  as  they  come  from  the 
hands  of  the  lapidary.  There  are  others  to  whom 
these  gems  are  hints  and  foregleams  of  the  New 
Jerusalem. 

The  secret  of  fetichism  is  that,  as  Mr.  Longfellow 
naively  says,  "  things  are  not  what  they  seem."    In 


852  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

all  fetichism  there  is  idealism,  in  all  there  is  piety  ; 
not  indeed  of  the  highest  type,  but  still  piety  that 
deserves  our  respect.  "  Things  are  in  the  saddle." 
Some  of  them  have  a  right  to  their  saddle  by  vir- 
tue of  the  faith  which  placed  them  there,  and  the 
strong  prescription  of  the  ages  gone  that  have  kept 
them  there.  Venerable  to  me  are  the  great  world- 
fetiches  which  for  centuries  have  ridden,  and  still 
ride,  so  large  a  portion  of  mankind.  Venerable  is 
the  Kaaba  with  its  stone,  the  oldest  visible  object 
of  worship,  in  which  Islam  adores  the  heirloom  of 
an  elder  faith.  A^enei-able  is  the  house  of  the  Vir- 
gin, which  angels  transported  from  Nazareth  and 
delivered  at  Loretto.  Venerable  are  the  lip-worn 
bronzes  of  Rome.  Venerable  are  the  sacred  bones 
of  the  Three  Kings  which  liave  wandered  so  far,  and 
find  rest  at  last  in  the  city  of  Cologne.  What  care 
1  that  historically  these  things  are  not  what  their 
votaries  claim  ?  They  have  a  history  of  their  own, 
which  is  quite  authentic  and  commands  my  hom- 
age. Where  devotion  has  knelt  for  ages  I  do  not 
care  to  criticise.  Criticism  has  its  rights ;  but  if 
criticism  had  full  sway,  the  world  would  be  shorn 
of  half  its  sanctities.  If  criticism  had  full  sway,  no 
epic  would  ever  have  been  sung,  no  gospel  written, 
and  no  religion  have  established  itself  on  tlie  eartli. 
It  should  move  our  admiration  to  see  what  awful- 
ncss  faith  can  impart  to  dead  matter,  or  what  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FETICHISM.      353 

senses  esteem  as  such.  In  the  view  of  the  higher 
philosophy  there  is  no  dead  matter,  but  only  forces 
in  equilibrio,  —  temporary  arrest  of  motion.  The 
penetrating  eye  of  Leibniz  saw  something  in  bod- 
ies which  Descartes,  who  separated  matter  and 
spirit,  could  not  see,  —  something  beside  extension 
and  even  prior  to  extension.  Ever  memorable  say- 
ing, —  "  Imo  extensione  prius  "  !  Fetichism  sees 
in  bodies  and  gives  to  bodies  an  added  something 
which  no  ontology  can  state  and  no  analysis  de- 
tect,—  something  impalpable,  imponderable,  insep- 
arable, untransferable,  —  something  whose  value 
increases  with  the  lapse  of  time,  —  something  by 
virtue  of  which  they  are  precious  as  rubies,  and 
without  which  they  are  vile  as  the  ground  we 
tread  on. 


23 


354  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


GENIUS. 

[From  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  I'ebruary,  1868.] 

'TPHE  finest  spirits  of  all  time  concur  in  ascrib- 
"^  ing  their  best  effects  to  a  higher  power. 
The  genial  flow  of  successful  production  registers 
itself  in  our  consciousness,  as  a  special  grace  be- 
yond the  command  of  the  private  will.  The  expe- 
rience of  every  true  artist,  of  everj^  great  poet, 
prophet,  discoverer,  of  every  providential  leader  of 
his  time,  attests  the  action  of  an  alien  force  tran- 
scending the  calculated  efforts  of  the  mind,  and 
working  the  surprises  of  art  and  life. 

This  latent  and  reserved  power  in  man  the 
Greeks  called  Aaificov  (daemon).  Plutarch,  in  his 
gossiping  discourse  on  the  diemon  of  Socrates,  re- 
ports the  vision  of  one  Timarchus,  who  descended 
into  the  cave  of  Trophonius  to  consult  the  oracle 
on  the  subject.  He  there  saw  spirits  which  were 
partly  immersed  in  human  bodies  and  partly  ex- 
terior to  them,  shining  luminously  above  their 
heads.  He  was  told  that  the  part  immersed  in 
the  body  is  called  the  soul,  but  the  external  part 
is  called  daemon.     Every  man,  says  the  oracle,  has 


"      GENIUS.  855 

his  daemon,  whom  he  is  bound  to  obey ;  those  who 
implicitly  follow  that  guidance  are  the  prophetic 
souls,  the  favorites  of  the  gods.  Goethe,  in  his 
oracular  way,  speaks  of  the  demonic  in  man  as  a 
power  lying  back  of  the  will,  and  inspiring  certain 
natures  with  miraculous  energy.  He  disclaims  this 
power  for  himself,  yet  in  his  Autobiography  rep- 
resents the  poetic  faculty  dwelling  in  him  as  some- 
thing beyond  his  control,  —  as  a  kind  of  obsession. 

It  is  this  involuntary,  incalculable  force  that  con- 
stitutes what  we  call  genius.  The  word  was  origi- 
nally synonymous  with  the  AuI/jlcov  of  the  Greeks. 
It  denoted  a  guardian  power  beyond  the  conscious- 
ness and  above  the  will  of  the  individual,  —  a 
power  which  determined  and  controlled  his  ac- 
tion, but  over  which  he  had  no  control.  It  is 
comparatively  a  recent  use  to  speak  of  genius  as  a 
quality  of  mind  ;  a  power  possessed  by,  instead  of  a 
power  possessing.  We  still  make  use  of  the  phrase 
"  good  genius  "  in  the  sense  of  guardian  spirit. 

Genius  is  the  higher  self,  and  common  to  all 
men.  What,  then,  distinguishes  men  of  genius,  so 
called,  from  the  rest  of  mankind  ?  We  may  sup- 
pose that  the  higher  self  is  more  active  in  some 
than  in  others,  or  that  it  finds  more  docile  sub- 
jects. Or  we  may  suppose  that  its  quality  differs 
with  different  individuals.  I  only  contend  that 
genius  is  not  a  special  faculty  which  he  who  has 


356  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

it  emploj'S  at  will,  as  the  painter  his  brush  or  the 
sculptor  his  chisel,  but  the  higher  nature,  the  man 
of  the  man. 

It  is  not,  however,  of  genius  as  a  psychological 
principle,  but  of  genius  as  an  intellectual  phenome- 
non, —  of  genius  as  manifested  in  science,  art,  life, 
—  that  I  wish  to  speak. 

So  yiewed,  its  great  and  distinguishing  charac- 
teristic is  orighiality.  In  the  etymology  of  the 
word  lies  the  sense  of  productive  force,  and  in 
vulgar  opinion  it  stands  for  originating  power.  In 
science  it  appears  as  discovery  and  invention,  al- 
ways as  newness.  It  is  tlic  mediator  between  the 
known  and  the  unknown,  the  possible  and  impos- 
sible. In  science,  as  in  nature,  there  is  always 
a  leap  from  stage  to  stage.  The  beginning  of  the 
animal  is  not  the  organic  sequent  of  tlie  vegetable 
kingdom,  nor  the  viviparous  animal  of  the  ovipa- 
rous, nor  man  of  the  chimpanzee.  At  each  stage 
there  is  a  lift  between  successive  orders,  a  break 
in  the  sequence  where  plastic  Nature  interpolates 
a  new  thought ;  and  the  j^rcesens  numen  makes  the 
bridge  from  kind  to  kind.  The  history  of  intellec- 
tual genesis  exhibits  similar  interpolations.  The 
succession  between  old  and  new,  in  science  and 
art,  is  not  a  mechanical  sequence,  but  a  lift  and  a 
leap.  The  transition  from  stage  to  stage  is  not 
the  measured  increment  of  an  arithmetical  series. 


GENIUS.  857 

but  a  mediation  of  originating  genius.  Genius  is 
the  bridge-builder,  the  pontifex  maximus,  in  the 
passage  from  period  to  period  in  science  and  art. 

Such  a  bridge  was  built  by  Kepler  for  the  sci- 
ence of  astronomy,  which,  after  the  pregnant  con- 
jecture of  Copernicus,  had  come  to  a  stand  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  Tycho  Brahe  had  accumulated 
at  his  observa^tory  a  mass  of  facts  which  he  wanted 
the  wit  to  apply  to  further  progress,  still  maintain- 
ing, in  spite  of  Copernicus,  the  earth's  immobility. 
Kepler  saw  these  facts ;  and  in  his  productive  im- 
agination they  immediately  germinated  into  new 
discoveries.  A  discrepance  of  eight  minutes  be- 
tween the  position  of  Mars  as  noted  by  Brahe  and 
that  which  it  should  have  had  as  calculated  by  the 
Copernican  hypothesis,  suggested  to  him  the  ellipse 
as  the  true  orbit  of  planetary  motion.  With  this 
discovery,  to  which  he  added  that  of  the  equal 
areas  in  equal  times  of  the  radius  vector^  and  the 
true  proportion  of  the  times  of  revolution  to  the 
distances  of  the  planets  from  the  sun,  he  inaugu- 
rated the  new  era  in  astronomy.  Kepler's  "  Three 
Laws  "  are  the  three  arches  of  the  bridge  by  which 
the  sublimest  of  the  sciences  crossed  the  gulf  from 
the  Ptolemaic  to  the  modern  system. 

In  later  time,  when  Laplace  by  victorious  arith- 
metic had  solved  the  portentous  problems  of  the 
Mecanique  Celeste^  and  reduced  to  order  the  seem- 


358  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ing  irregularities  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  —  when 
every  planet  but  one  was  exactly  timed  in  sidereal 
horology,  —  when  even  the  revolution  of  distant 
Saturn  was  computed  to  the  day,  the  hour,  the  very 
second,  of  his  arrival  at  the  home  station  after  an 
annual  journey  of  nearly  thirty  earthly  years, — 
Uranus  alone  defied  arithmetic,  and  refused  to 
conform  to  the  time  set  down  for  him  on  the 
heavenly  dial.  No  calculus  could  fix  this  extreme 
member  of  the  spheral  school,  no  equation  could 
dispose  of  his  rebellious  eccentricity.  "  What  ails 
the  refractory  planet  ?  "  asked  the  star-timing  sen- 
tinels of  science  at  their  watch-posts.  There  was 
a  chasm  between  Uranial  and  cis-Uranial  astron- 
omy. A  bridge  was  needed  to  span  that  gulf. 
"Who  will  build  the  bridge  from  Saturn  to  Uranus  ? 
Tlien  said  Leverrier,  "  That  bridge  must  be  a 
planet."  And  he  set  himself  to  work  to  construct 
a  planet.  It  must  be  of  such  and  such  dimensions, 
it  must  be  at  such  and  such  distances  from  the 
sun  and  other  planets,  it  must  have  such  and  such 
periods  of  rotation  and  revolution.  And  now,  gen- 
tlemen at  the  sentinel-posts  of  science,  your  bridge 
is  ready ;  and  if  at  a  certain  hour  of  a  certain 
night  you  will  turn  your  telescopes  on  a  certain 
quarter  of  the  heavens,  you  will  see  a  planet  which 
was  never  yet  noted  by  terrestrial  eye.  And  the  sen- 
tinels pointed  their  tubes,  and  saw  Neptune  emerge 


GENIUS.  359 

from  the  upper  deep,  and  respond  with  ray  serene 
to  the  searching  interrogatory  of  his  brother  orb. 

But  before  the  problems  of  the  Mecanique  Celeste 
could  be  solved,  a  higher  arithmetic  was  required 
than  any  known  to  ancient  science.  The  methods 
employed  by  the  old  astronomers  were  not  appli- 
cable to  these  new  exigencies.  A  bridge  was 
needed  between  the  old  computation  and  the  new 
problems.  That  bridge  was  furnished  by  Leibniz, 
the  mathematical  genius  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. He  examined  the  methods  then  in  use  for 
determining  the  values  of  unknown  and  variable 
quantities,  and  found  that  by  considering  number 
as  continuous,  and  of  gradual  growth,  the  process 
might  be  simplified,  and  the  values  of  unknown 
quantities  ascertained  by  equations  established  be- 
tween their  derivatives,  instead  of  directly  between 
themselves.  The  result  was  the  infinitesimal  calcu- 
lus, —  the  serviceable  tool  without  which  astronomy 
could  not  have  achieved  its  greatest  triumphs. 

Richer  than  science  itself  in  illustrations  of  origi- 
nating genius  is  the  application  of  science  to  art. 
Art  is  the  issue  to  which  science  necessarily  tends. 
As  spirit  cannot  remain  spirit  in  unconditioned  ab- 
straction, but  is  bound  to  precipitate  itself  in  mate- 
rial creations,  so  knowledge  rushes  into  life,  and 
science  hastens  to  realize  itself  in  art.  In  wliat- 
ever    department    of    scientific    inquiry,  however 


360  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

remote  from  practical  life,  a  new  fact  is  discov- 
ered, the  genius  of  humanity  will  sooner  or  later 
translate  that  fact  into  use. 

In  1820  a  Danish  professor,  in  the  midst  of  a 
lecture  on  electricity,  was  suddenly  seized  with 
a  thought  which  so  overwhelmed  him  that  he 
straightway  closed  his  delivery,  adjourned  with 
Ms  class  from  the  lecture-room  to  the  laboratory, 
there  to  test  his  idea  by  a  practical  experiment. 
The  experiment  demonstrated  that  the  electric 
current  is  accompanied  by  a  magnetic  circulation, 
and  exerts,  under  certain  conditions,  a  determin- 
ing influence  on  the  direction  of  tlie  magnetic 
needle.  In  a  word,  he  discovered  electro-magnet- 
ism. Twelve  years  later,  an  American  artist  re- 
turning from  Europe  hears  a  fellow-passenger  in 
the  home-bound  packet-ship  recount  some  experi- 
ments with  the  electro-magnet  recently  witnessed 
in  Paris.  He  conceives  the  idea  that  the  rapid 
transmission  of  electricity  might  be  turned  to  ac- 
count in  the  communication  of  intelligence.  After 
several  fruitless  experiments,  he  succeeds  in  con- 
structing a  machine  by  which  the  action  of  the 
electro-magnet  on  a  lever  puts  in  motion  an  iron 
pen,  and  deposits  marks  which,  used  as  equivalents 
of  alphabetic  signs,  produce  on  paper  an  intelli- 
gible record.  Another  twelve  years,  and  a  message 
is   sent   from   Baltimore   to  Washington   by   this 


GENIUS.  361 

miraculous  agent.  Meanwhile  the  pregnant  idea  has 
fructified  abroad ;  lightning  has  become  a  medium 
of  communication  between  the  capitals  of  Europe ; 
England  builds  a  colossal  steamship,  which  having 
miscarried  in  every  other  enterprise,  and  conju- 
gated in  her  brief  history  all  the  moods  and  tenses 
of  failure,  serves  at  last  a  providential  purpose  in 
threading  the  Atlantic  with  an  insulating  cable 
which  binds  the  hemispheres  in  social  converse. 
In  less  than  fifty  years  from  the  date  of  Oersted's 
experiment,  the  Old  World  is  wired  to  the  New ; 
continent  converses  with  continent  by  electro- 
magnetism.  At  this  rate,  how  long  will  it  be  be- 
fore the  whole  earth,  girdled  round  and  round  with 
electric  lines  of  intelligence,  shall  repair  the  disas- 
ter of  Babel,  and  have  all  her  children  united  once 
more  in  conscious  communication  ? 

One  more  illustration  of  the  many  which  suggest 
themselves.  Tliere  has  grown  up  of  late  an  art 
which,  though  strictly  mechanical  in  its  methods, 
is  nearly  allied  to  beautiful  art  in  its  products,  and 
surpasses  beautiful  art  in  its  faithful  rendering  of 
nature,  —  the  art  by  which  the  sun  is  made  to  copy 
and  fix  the  pictures  he  paints  on  the  eye.  When 
we  gaze  on  a  beautiful  or  beloved  object  which 
time  and  distance  must  soon  remove,  the  desire 
arises  to  have  what  is  next  to  the  object  itself,  — 
the  "  counterfeit  presentment "  that  sliall    repro- 


862  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ducG  the  image  when  the  original  is  withdrawn. 
The  frolic  grace  of  childhood,  the  radiant  bloom 
of  youth.,  are  charms  which  the  swift  years  are 
hastening  to  obliterate.  The  fond  parent  whose 
house  these  visions  of  beauty  bless  is  anxious  to 
preserve  in  the  impress  what  he  cannot  retain  in 
the  life.  The  tourist  bound  for  distant  lands,  in- 
tending protracted  absence,  would  fain  leave  behind 
some  image  of  himself  that  may  represent  him  in 
the  home  circle,  and  take  with  him  the  images  of 
his  beloved.  The  same  tourist  bound  for  home 
desires  some  memorial  that  shall  reproduce  for 
liim  in  after  years  the  scenes  and  wonders  of  for- 
eign lands.  The  painter's  art  may,  to  some  ex- 
tent, supply  these  wants  for  such  as  are  able  to 
command  its  service.  But  the  products  of  pencil 
and  brush  are  luxuries  not  accessible  to  all.  A 
cheaper  artist  has  been  secured  for  these  occasions. 
The  same  celestial  limner  that  painted  the  origi- 
nals is  engaged  by  modern  invention  to  repeat  the 
picture  in  miniature  and  portable  form.  Photog- 
raphy answers  the  demand  of  unerring  accuracy  in 
the  product,  with  the  smallest  cost  in  the  process. 
The  history  of  this  invention  illustrates  the  oppor- 
tuneness of  genius  in  the  application  of  science  to 
art.  The  art  of  photography  was  impossible  until 
chemistry,  the  most  recent  of  the  sciences,  had 
discovered  the  physical  fact  on  which  it  is  based. 


GENIUS. 

No  sooner  was  the  fact  discovered  than  genius  was 
ready  to  appropriate  and  translate  it  into  use.  It 
was  near  the  close  of  the  last  century  that  Senebier, 
investigating  the  laws  of  vegetable  processes,  dis- 
covered that  the  light  of  the  sun  is  required  to 
enable  the  leaves  of  plants  to  fix  the  carbon  and 
disengage  the  oxygen  of  the  earth's  atmosphere. 
Subsequent  experiments,  suggested  by  this  discov- 
ery, established  the  fact  that  the  violet  rays  of  the 
prismal  spectrum  and  those  which  bound  it  on 
the  outer  side  possess  the  property  of  blackening 
chloride  of  silver.  To  ordinary  minds  there  was 
no  particular  significance  in  this  fact,  no  relation 
to  pictorial  art.  But  the  genius  of  Daguerre  came 
in  contact  with  it.  He  saw  in  it  the  germ  of  a 
new  and  wondrous  invention  ;  saw  in  it  the  possi- 
bility of  pictures  painted  by  the  light,  —  copies  of 
its  own  originals,  —  and  gave  us  in  the  photograph 
a  bridge  of  triumph  from  the  laboratory  to  the 
easel.  By  means  of  this  invention,  which  renders 
with  impartial  fidelity  every  trait  in  nature  and  art, 
the  tourist  brings  home  the  lands  he  visits,  in  his 
portfolio.  Venice  and  Rome,  Switzerland  and  the 
Rhine,  are  sold  at  the  print-shops,  and  Europe  may 
be  seen  without  the  inconvenience  of  sea-sickness. 

In  beautiful  art,  as  in  mechanical,  the  mark  of 
genius  is  still  originality.     And  here  this  trait  is 


364  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

most  conspicuous  in  the  great  transitions  by  which 
art  passes  from  its  rude  and  elementary  stages  to 
its  full  development,  —  transitions  which  culminate 
in  some  marked  individual,  who  bursts  the  trammels 
of  convention,  and  leads  his  age  by  one  decisive 
step  from  bondage  to  freedom.  Such  a  deliverer 
was  Praxiteles  when  he  set  before  his  countrymen 
the  daring  novelty  of  the  Cnidian  A^enus,  proclaim- 
ing the  complete  beauty  of  the  human  form,  and 
proving  that  beauty  undraped  and  unadorned,  to 
the  eye  of  the  -spirit,  is  sufficient  covering.  Such 
a  deliverer  was  Leonardo,  who  emancipated  art 
from  the  bonds  of  Umbrian  spiritualism,  and  in- 
staurated  simple  humanity  in  the  schools  of  Italy. 

Next  to  originality,  the  most  distinctive  charac- 
teristic of  genius  is  a  right  proportion  between  the 
productive  and  regulative  forces  of  the  mind.  A 
certain  exceptional  amount  of  intellectual  vigor 
being  presupposed,  what  most  distinguishes  minds 
of  the  first  from  those  of  a  lower  order  is  that  due 
command  of  their  powers  which  precludes  all  wild- 
ness  and  excess,  and  secures  for  their  works  the 
crowning  grace  of  proportion.  The  mind  of  man, 
like  the  planet  he  inhabits,  and  like  all  the  great 
agencies  of  nature,  is  bipolar.  It  has  its  positive 
pole  and  its  negative,  —  antagonist  forces,  which, 
for   want    of    a    better   designation,   we    will   call 


GENIUS.  365 

Imagination  and  Reflection.  Imagination  is  the 
positive  force,  reflection  the  negative ;  imagination 
creates,  reflection  limits  and  defines.  The  one 
gives  the  stuff,  the  other  the  form.  Imagination, 
although  the  most  exalted  of  the  intellectual  pow- 
ers, is  also  the  most  universal.  It  is  the  first 
faculty  which  the  infant  exercises,  and  the  last  to 
become  extinct  in  old  age.  Its  universality  is  seen 
in  dreams.  The  clown  dreams  as  well  as  the  poet ; 
and  the  dreams  of  either  are  just  as  poetic  at  one 
time,  and  just  as  absurd  at  another.  Dreaming  is 
an  act  of  pure  imagination,  attesting  in  all  men  a 
creative  power  which,  if  it  were  available  in  wak- 
ing, would  make  every  man  a  Dante  or  a  Shak- 
speare.  Our  night-history  is  a  series  of  poetic 
compositions,  each  one  of  which,  however  absurd 
as  a  whole,  contains  perhaps  some  one  passage  or 
trait  which  would  make  the  fortune  of  a  work  of 
art.  But  though  the  raw  capacity  is  universal,  the 
trained  faculty  is  peculiar.  Out  of  this  unorgan- 
ized prose  imagination  the  conscious  artistic  power 
must  develop  itself,  like  the  winged  bird  from  the 
senseless  Qgg.  The  artist  differs  from  the  common 
man  not  so  much  in  the  amount  of  mind  possessed 
as  in  the  amount  taken  up  into  consciousness. 
Imagination  alone  does  not  constitute  genius. 
There  may  be  an  excess  of  that  element,  un- 
balanced   by    the    regulative    powers.      "  ]\Ien    of 


366  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

unbounded  imagination,"  ssljs  Dryden,  "  often  want 
the  poise  of  judgment."  In  actual  life  that  excess 
produces,  or  rather  constitutes,  insanity,  —  a  phe- 
nomenon very  similar  to  that  of  dreaming.  The 
maniac,  like  the  dreamer,  is  taken  out  of  his  true 
position  in  space  and  time  ;  but  the  reason  of  the 
disturbance  is  not  the  same  in  both.  In  the  maniac 
the  imagination,  owing  to  some  morbid  action  of  the 
brain,  overrules  the  impressions  derived  through 
the  senses  ;  in  the  dreamer  the  predominance  of 
the  imagination  arises  from  the  torpid  state  of  the 
sentient  organs.  The  dreamer  is  a  madman  qui- 
escent ;  the  madman  is  a  dreamer  in  action. 

In  intellectual  efforts  the  excess  of  imagination 
over  the  negative  faculty  shows  itself  in  over- 
strained and  fantastic  productions,  in  poetic  "  am- 
bition that  o'erleaps  its  sell."  Phaeton,  in  the 
Greek  myth,  borrows  the  sun-chariot,  but,  unable 
to  guide  the  steeds,  is  hurried  away  by  them  to  his 
own  destruction.  There  are  Phaetons  in  every 
walk  of  life,  —  men  of  great  capacity  and  vast  am- 
bition, who  fail  in  serious  undertakings  for  lack,  as 
we  say,  of  "  judgment,"  that  is,  of  negative  power. 
They  are  carried  away  by  great  conceptions  which 
they  are  unable  to  manage  and  bring  to  successful 
execution.  They  have  the  positive  element  of  gen- 
ius, imagination,  but  want  reflection,  —  that  reac- 
tion of  the  mind  on  its  own  forces  which  fixes  their 


GENIUS.  367 

limits  and  binds  them  with  law  and  form.  Unlim- 
ited force  is  force  without  effect.  The  sun's  rays 
would  be  powerless  without  the  refracting  and  re- 
flecting planets,  which  oppose  their  denser  spheres 
to  the  prodigal  efflux.  The  planets  Avould  fly 
asunder  and  be  dissipated  in  nebulae  without  the 
centripetal  force,  which  negatives  their  eager  striv- 
ing for  limitless  expansion.  The  vegetable  growths 
of  the  earth  would  exhaust  themselves  in  rank  ex- 
cess of  leaf  and  stalk,  and  never  ripen  into  fruit, 
were  it  not  for  the  concentrative  power  which 
checks  this  overgrowth,  and,  reducing  the  volume 
for  the  sake  of  the  product,  collects  the  luxuriant 
juices  of  the  plant  into  edible  pulp  and  marrow. 
What  the  centripetal  power  is  to  the  planet,  what 
concentration  is  to  the  plant,  that  reflection  is  to 
the  mind,  —  the  power  which  sets  bounds,  which 
corrects  and  defines,  which  moulds  and  perfects 
and  renders  available  the  raw  material  of  im- 
agination. 

For  want  of  this  negative  power  unbalanced 
minds  become  the  victims  of  their  own  ideality. 
Like  the  magician's  apprentice  in  Goethe's  deep 
fable,  they  are  drowned  by  the  spirits  they  evoke. 
As  artists,  as  poets,  they  often  astonish,  but  never 
satisfy.  They  lacerate  the  soul  with  over-excite- 
ment ;  but  genius  is  alwa3's  self-possessed.  The 
masters  in  art  know  how  to  lay  as  well  as  to  sum- 


368  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

mon ;  they  command  the  spirits  they  conjure,  and 
dismiss  them  promptly  when  their  work  is  done. 

«'  In  die  Ecke 
Besen  !  Besen ! 
Seid's  gewesen  \" 

They  never  harrow  with  excessive  emotion.  What- 
ever horrors  their  subject  may  bring,  the  general 
harmony  is  not  disturbed.  If  they  summon  Furies, 
as  in  the  "  Eumenides  "  and  in  "  Macbeth,"  they  put 
music  in  their  mouths  and  a  solemn  measure  in 
their  feet.  If  they  picture  deeds  of  violence,  as 
in  "  Othello,"  they  half  envelop  them  in  their  own 
deep  shadows.  They  "  use  all  gently  ;  "  "  in  the 
very  torrent,  tempest,  and  whirlwind "  of  their 
"  passion  "  they  "  acquire  and  beget  a  temperance 
that  may  give  it  smoothness."  AVhether  dealing 
with  elemental  fury  or  wielding  the  lightnings  of 
vengeance,  they  never  transgress  the  severe  boun- 
dary line  of  beauty,  and  "  o'crstep  not  the  modesty 
of  nature."  With  the  grandest  themes  they  com- 
bine the  most  diligent  details  ;  for  genius  is  quite 
as  apparent  in  elaboration  as  in  conception.  It 
has  not  only  to  create  the  soul  of  a  work,  but  to 
mould,  part  by  part,  the  body  that  soul  is  to  in- 
habit. The  flow  of  thought  and  feeling,  when 
tending  to  issues  the  most  tremendous,  must  be 
guided  with  studied  care  and  measured  strokes 
through  subtleties  the  most  perplexing,  —  through 


GENIUS.  369 

the  marble  folds  of  tangled  serpents  to  Laocoon 
struggles,  through  difficult  flesh-tints  and  ana- 
tomical processes  to  miracles  of  pictured  passion, 
through  rhytlimic  cadences  to  Aias'  rage  and  Faust's 
despair.  In  works  like  these,  where  passion  gives 
soul  to  art,  and  art  gives  form  to  passion,  true 
genius  unites  intense  fervor  with  intenser  calm, 
the  fiercest  glow  of  conception  with  the  utmost  so- 
briety of  judgment.  However  imagination  may  soar, 
reason  must  hold  it  in  clieck.  However  passion 
may  seethe  and  foam,  a  reconciling  thought  must 
span  the  tumult,  as  the  rainbow  spans  Niagara. 

Genius  should  be  carefully  discriminated  from 
talent,  with  which  it  is  apt  to  be  confounded.  Tal- 
ent sometimes  culminates  into  the  altitude  of  gen- 
ius, but  is  never  at  home  on  those  august  heights. 
It  is  the  forced  hyperbole  of  the  rocket,  not  the 
easy  swell  of  the  Alps.  Talent  is  some  one  faculty 
unusually  developed  ;  genius  commands  all  the  fac- 
ulties. The  one  is  a  distinct  quality  ;  the  other,  the 
entire  man.  Talent  manufactures  ;  genius  creates. 
From  a  summer  full  of  roses  and  berries  talent 
concocts  its  essences  and  preserves ;  but  genius  is 
the  summer  itself,  which  grows  the  roses  and  ber- 
ries of  its  own  fecundity.  Talent  is  phenomenal,  — 
a  spectacle  which  wx  contemplate  as  something  for- 
eign and  external ;  but  genius  makes  us  a  party  to 
24 


370  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

its  doings,  —  it  carries  us  with  it  like  the  course 
of  things.  Works  of  talent  are  accidental ;  they 
might  not  have  happened,  or  might  be  other  than 
they  are,  without  seriously  affecting  the  issues  of 
life.  But  works  of  genius  seem  a  necessity  of 
nature,  —  as  if  they  could  not  be  other  than  they 
are,  and  could  not  but  have  been.  I  can  as  easily 
imagine  Italy  or  England  left  out  of  the  map  of 
Europe,  as  I  can  the  "  Divina  Commedia  "  or  "  Ham- 
let "  expunged  from  the  world's  literature.  Talent 
egotizes,  and  is  always  remindhig  you  of  itself ;  it 
is  always  conscious.  But  genius,  sufficient  to  itself, 
never  seems  to  know  what  it  does.  Like  nature, 
it  informs  its  creations  with  a  spirit  everywhere 
present,  but  nowhere  egoistically  prominent.  Like 
nature,  it  works  with  equal  ease  and  equal  satis- 
faction in  the  highest  and  the  lowest,  and  never 
seems  in  one  thing  more  than  another  to  take 
either  pleasure  or  pride.  It  performs  trifles  w4th 
an  air  which  makes  them  seem  great,  and  per- 
forms wonders  with  an  air  which  makes  them  seem 
trifles.  With  equal  hand  it  dispenses  thunder-bolts 
and  thistle-down  ;  thinks  as  much  of  the  robin's 
note  as  it  does  of  the  ocean's  roar,  as  much  of  the 
daisy  in  the  rock-cleft  as  it  does  of  the  cataract  by 
whose  spray  it  is  nourished.  It  makes  the  most 
refractory  problems  seem  absurdly  easy,  so  adroit 
the   simplicity   with   which   it  handles   them;    as 


GENIUS,  371 

men  of  great  muscular  strength  make  the  bodies 
they  lift  seem  divested  of  their  gravity.  We  won- 
der less  at  the  ready  solution  than  we  do  at  our 
own  stupidity,  which  failed  to  discover  it.  As  in 
the  story  of  Columbus  and  the  Qgg^  while  school - 
learning  ponders  and  plods,  genius,  with  easy 
assurance,  marches  straight  to  the  goal. 

What  somnambulism  is  to  ordinary  sleep,  that 
genius  is  to  ordinary  waiving,  —  a  conscious  clair- 
voyance, as  somnambulism  is  an  unconscious  one. 
It  is  a  higher  waking;  it  dissolves  the  dream-band, 
which  in  ordinary  men  interposes  between  the 
subject  and  the  object,  lifts  the  heavy  lid,  and  in- 
forms with  new  and  sincere  perceptions  the  quick- 
ened sense.  Something  of  prophetic  insight  is 
proper  to  it.  When  Copernicus  propounded  the 
soli-central  hypothesis,  astronomers  objected  that 
if  his  position  were  correct,  Venus  ought  to  have 
phases  lilvc  the  moon.  Copernicus,  nothing  abashed, 
admitted  the  inference,  but  immediately  added 
that  if  men  should  ever  come  to  see  Venus  more 
distinctly,  they  would  find  that  she  had  phases. 
This  was  before  the  invention  of  the  telescope. 
When  that  instrument  was  given  to  science,  one 
of  its  earliest  fruits  was  the  discovery  of  the  phases 
of  Venus.  The  composition  of  the  diamond  was 
conjectured  by  Newton  on  theoretic  grounds,  be- 
fore it  was  ascertained  by  Lavoisier ;  and  Goethe, 


372  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  his  "  Morphology,"  anticipated  some  of  the  lead- 
ing discoveries  of  modern  science. 

Genius,  in  close  rapport  with  nature,  discovers 
new  expressions  in  tlie  old  familiar  face  of  things, 
and  so  enlarges  the  vocahulary  of  metaphor.  Until 
Shakspeare  spoke  of  moonlight  sleeping,  the  pe- 
culiar expression  of  a  lunar  reflection  had  never 
been  exactly  defined.  Now  that  the  word  has  be^en 
spoken,  we  wonder  that  any  other  could  ever  have 
been  applied  to  it.  "Who,"  says  Coleridge, '' has 
not  a  thousand  times  seen  snoAv  fall  upon  water  ? 
Who  has  not  watched  it  with  a  new  feeling  from 
the  time  wdien  he  read  Burns' s  comparison  of  sen- 
sual pleasure  to 

'  Snow  that  falls  upon  a  river,  — 
A  moment  white,  then  gone  forever '  1 " 

Above  all,  genius  is  humane.  It  esteems  noth- 
ing common  or  unclean ;  it  is  no  respecter  of 
persons.  In  politics  it  is  oftenest  found  on  the 
side  of  the  people,  as  against  exclusive  and  pre- 
scriptive rights.  Talent  is  exclusive,  because  con- 
ventional. Holdino:  not  of  original  nature,  but  of 
custom,  it  exaggerates  the  artificial  distinctions 
wiiich  custom  has  established.  Genius  absolves 
from  the  ban  of  convention ;  i  t  restores  to  com- 
mon life  its  sacred  rights.  Wherever  it  appears, 
humanity  is  renewed. 


GENIUS.  373 

I  have  spoken  of  genius  as  manifest  in  science 
and  art ;  but  these  are  by  no  means  its  exchisive 
province.  Its  characteristics  are  nowhere  more 
conspicuous  than  in  action.  There  are  deeds  which 
bear  its  stamp  as  unmistakably  as  the  masterpieces 
of  art.  When  Themistocles,  by  a  ruse,  cuts  off  the 
retreat  of  the  Allies,  provokes  the  enemy's  attack, 
and  risks  the  destinies  of  Greece  on  a  single  battle; 
when  Caesar  confounds  Pompey  at  Pharsalus  with 
a  fourth  cohort ;  when  William  of  Normandy  scut- 
tles the  ships  which  have  brought  him  and  his 
counts  from  the  coast  of  France,  shutting  up  his 
expedition  within  the  alternative  of  victory  or 
death;  when  Arnold  von  Winkelried  at  the  battle 
of  Sempach  breaks  the  Austrian  line  by  gathering 
the  enemy's  lances  in  his  arms ;  when  Cromwell 
with  a  stamp  of  his  foot  dissolves  the  Long  Par- 
liament "for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of 
the  people  ;  "  when  Israel  Putnam  at  Reading  baf- 
fles the  British  dragoons  by  urging  his  horse  over 
the  impracticable  precipice  ;  when  Napoleon  I.  with 
forced  marches  crosses  the  Alps  and  surprises  the 
Austrians  on  the  plains  of  Lombardy, —  I  discern 
in  those  acts  a  power  akin  to  that  which  makes 
the  greatness  of  Kepler  or  Michael  Angelo. 

Is  it  asked  to  what  individuals  on  the  roll  of 
fame  the  praise  of  genius  is  especially  due  ?     The 


374  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

question  is  one  which  craves  liberal  handling.  It 
will  not  bear  a  peremptory  answer.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion on  which  no  one  likes  that  another  should 
dogmatize.  The  number  is  small  of  those  to  whom 
all  will  accord  the  foremost  rank  in  their  Valhalla. 
The  stars  of  first  magnitude  in  the  intellectual  fir- 
mament are  soon  catalogued.  Some  dozen  names 
from  Homer  to  Goethe  are  all  that  three  thousand 
years  of  Indo-Germanic  culture  have  inscribed 
among  the  dii  majores  of  poetry ;  a  few  more  in 
science,  and  as  many  in  the  plastic  arts. 

To  an  American  jealous  of  national  fame  the 
question  presents  itself,. What  is  our  part  and  lot 
in  this  matter  ?  What  have  we  that  may  vie  with 
the  splendid  examples  of  the  Old  World  ? 

The  bane  of  American  genius  is  popularity,  the 
pursuit  and  the  tyranny  of  the  popular  vote. 
Without  the  popular  vote  no  American  is  great  or 
blest.  Our  heaven  is  an  elective  privilege ;  not 
to  be  popular  is  tlie  American  hell.  So  the  cus- 
tom of  the  ballot  extends  its  sway  over  letters 
and  art ;  no  standard  of  success  is  acknowledged 
but  a  numerical  one.  So  many  readers,  so  many 
copies  sold,  so  much  merit :  as  if  intellectual  pre- 
eminence, like  political,  could  be  conferred  by  the 
ballot-box !  The  writer  will  never  prosper  with 
that  prosperity  which  the  genuine   artist  desires, 


GENIUS.  375 

who  has  the  fear  of  the  majority  before  his  eyes, 
or  thinks  more  of  his  readers'  judgment  than  his 
own.     The  best  works  are  never  popular. 

As  to  the  influence  of  foreign  models,  which  is 
thought  by  some  to  act  unfavorably  on  native 
genius,  I  can  see  no  hindrance  in  that  direction. 
European  art  can  no  more  extinguish  ours  than 
the  old  European  could  preclude  the  new,  or 
Sophocles  extinguish  Schiller.  Other  minds  are 
to  native  genius  but  so  much  nature,  one  among 
the  many  ingredients  in  the  common  soil  from 
which  by  its  own  elective  chemistry  it  draws  its 
life. 

There  is  a  periodicity  in  the  world  of  mind  as 
in  the  world  of  material  nature.  Epochs  of  cre- 
ative power  recur  at  certain,  as  yet  incalculable, 
intervals  in  the  course  of  time.  Every  zone  re- 
ceives in  its  turn  the  full  illumination  of  the  sun 
of  history.  No  doubt  this  nation  will  have  in  its 
turn,  as  others  before  it  have  had,  its  golden  age 
of  intellectual  glory.  And  when  that  age  arrives, 
the  American  poet  or  prophet  or  sage  who  shall 
worthily  represent  the  mind  of  this  continent  will 
find  his  place  prepared  for  him  by  more  com- 
manding antecedents,  his  work  reinforced  by 
ampler  resources,  than  ever  yet  fell  to  the  lot  of 
genius. 


376  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE. 

'T^WO  factors  co-operate  in  every  organized  be- 
ing  to  make  it  what  it  is.  All  animated 
nature,  including  man,  is  the  product  of  the  two. 

We  will  call  them  Idea  and  Accident. 

By  Idea  I  mean  the  interior  principle  in  each 
subject,  the  proper  self  of  the  individual,  the  dis- 
tinctive type  of  the  kind. 

By  Accident  I  mean  whatever  in  any  way  affects 
the  development,  modifies  the  property,  or  deter- 
mines the  manifestation  of  the  individual  or  the 
kind. 

I  use  the  word  idea  in  the  original  Platonic 
sense  of  a  theorem,  or  forma  formans,  prescril)ing 
and  enduing  i\\Q  forma  formata  in  Nature's  kinds, — 
the  ultimate  law  of  its  being.i 

In  works  of  human  art,  design,  that  is,  an  idea  of 
what  is  to  be,  must  precede  and  direct  creation.  A 
house  is  not  built  without  a  plan.     Can  we  suppose 

1  "  Lord  Bacon,  the  British  Plato,  describes  the  laws  of  the  ma- 
terial universe  as  the  ideas  in  nature.  '  Quod  in  natura  naturata 
lex,  in  natura  naturante  idea  dicitur.'  "  —  Coleridge:  Church  and 
State. 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  377 

it  otherwise  in  Nature's  laboratory  ?  Must  not  idea 
there  also  precede  production  ? 

The  Hebrew  poet  understood  this  ;  he  platonizcd 
by  anticipation  when  he  wrote  :  "  Thine  eyes  did 
see  my  substance  while  yet  unformed.  In  thy 
book  were  all  things  written  while  as  yet  there 
was ,  none  of  them." 

It  is  the  fault  of  the  doctrine  of  "  evolution,"  as 
commonly  presented,  in  its  application  to  vegetable 
and  animal  organisms,  that  it  makes  no  account  of 
this  agency ;  it  does  not  recognize  the  plastic  func- 
tion of  ideas,  although  heredity,  on  which  it  insists, 
is  nothing  else.  It  knows,  or  it  emphasizes,  but 
one  function  in  Nature,  —  accident ;  it  sees  in 
man,  brute,  and  plant  only  what  time  and  circum- 
stance have  made  them. 

But  when  we  observe  how  like  in  Nature  pro- 
duces like,  how  always  the  acorn  brings  forth  the 
oak,  and  never  willow  or  ash,  the  lion  a  lion,  and 
not  a  bear ;  when  we  mark  the  continuance,  age 
after  age,  of  certain  types,  which  are  only  ideas 
stamped  on  stuff,  —  we  must  admit,  I  think,  that 
ideas  are  controlling  factors  in  the  universe  of 
things.  The  production  of  like  by  like  is  intelli- 
gible only  on  this  supposition ;  otherwise  it  would 
be  only  occasional,  accidental. 

Ideas  are  the  forms  of  creatures  present  to  the 
creative  mind  prior  to  the  actual  existence  of  those 


378  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

creatures.  Creation,  or  evolution,  is  the  embodiment 
and  presentation  of  those  ideas  to  the  finite  mind. 

Ideas  are  motives  which  act  from  within  out- 
ward ;  accidents  are  motives  which  act  from  with- 
out inward.  Ideas  belong  to  science  ;  accidents  to 
history. 

In  what  proportion  do  these  factors  combine  in 
human  life  ?  What  is  their  comparative  influence 
on  human  destiny  ? 

It  is  often  affirmed  that  circumstances  make  the 
man ;  that  character  and  destiny  are  the  product  of 
influences  that  have  acted  on  us  from  without ;  that 
we  are  what  those  influences  have  made  us,  and 
could  not,  with  such  motives,  have  been  other  than 
we  are ;  that  had  circumstances  been  different  we 
should  have  developed  differently,  it  might  have 
been  better,  or  it  might  have  been  worse.  We 
might  have  figured  as  heroes  of  history  or  as  saints 
of  the  Church ;  or  we  might,  as  evil-doers  and 
felons,  have  incurred  the  reprobation  of  mankind. 
It  is  the  fault  of  circumstance  that  we  are  not 
Washingtons  or  Howards ;  it  is  the  favor  of  acci- 
dent that  we  are  not  Borgias  and  Robespierres. 
The  poet's  fancy  could  suppose  in  a  clodhopper 
of  Stoke-Pogis  a  possible  Milton. 

This  view  of  man  overlooks  the  element  of  indi- 
viduality, or  makes  individuality  itself  an  accident. 
If  all  that  before  our  birth  contributed  to  make  us 


THE  LORDS  OF  LIFE.  379 

what  we  are  ;  if  pre-natal  as  well  as  post-natal  in- 
fluences are  to  be  reckoned  as  circumstance,  —  then 
it  is  unquestionably  true,  or  rather,  it  is  an  identi- 
cal proposition,  that  circumstances  make  the  man ; 
for  then  circumstances  are  the  man. 

I  understand  by  circumstance  external  surround- 
ings, local  and  social  conditions ;  and  to  these 
must  be  conceded,  no  doubt,  an  immense  influence 
on  human  destiny. 

Consider  the  influence  of  locality  on  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  life.  The  highest  culture,  the  sci- 
ences and  arts,  have  their  geographical  limits.  A 
narrow  belt  of  earth  —  the  strip  included  between 
the  twentieth  and  the  sixtieth  degree  of  north  lati- 
tude —  comprises  all  the  great  lights  of  tlie  world's 
history.  And  among  the  nations  embraced  in  those 
limits,  what  differences,  what  inequalities,  according 
as  climate  and  topographical  peculiarities  —  a  little 
more  heat,  a  little  more  cold,  mountains  and  sea  — 
have  moulded  the  genius  and  cast  the  lot !  How 
different  the  European  of  the  North  and  the  Euro- 
pean of  the  South,  Protestant  Sweden  and  Catholic 
Spain  !  How  unlike  the  Swiss  mountaineer  and 
the  maritime  Dutch  ! 

Then  note  the  action  of  social  appointments  on 
individual  lives  —  the  influence  of  family,  church, 
education,  vicinage,  example.  How  mighty  these 
agencies  for  good  or  for  evil !    Family  :  the  charac- 


380  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ter  of  tne  parents,  their  social  status,  their  exam- 
ple, —  how  inevitably  these  act  on  the  child  in  that 
plastic  period  when  the  soul  is  responsive  to  every 
impression,  when  everything  that  comes  in  contact 
with  it  leaves  its  mark.  Who  will  predict  for  the 
child  of  the  low-lived  and  vicious  the  career  we  ex- 
pect for  the  offspring  of  the  high-fortuned,  the 
noble  and  refined  ?  Who  for  the  gamin^  the  waif 
of  the  street,  the  lot  we  prognosticate  for  the  well- 
to-do  citizen's  well-nurtured  hope  ? 

Bodily  constitution,  health,  and  disease  :  who  can 
measure  the  influence  of  these,  or  guess  how  deeply 
they  may  enter  into  the  life  of  the  soul?  how  far 
physical  accident  may  sway  the  will  and  shape  the 
life? 

Other  influences,  unknown,  incalculable,  come  in 
for  their  share  in  the  casting  of  every  lot.  Every 
circumstance,  every  accident  to  which  human  na- 
ture is  subjected,  will  have  its  influence  for  good 
or  evil. 

But  are  these  influences  fatal  ?  Do  they  alone 
decide  man's  destiny  ?  A  child  is  this  moment 
cast  upon  the  world, — 

"  Ut  sffivis  projectus  ab  undis 
Navita :  " 

what  shall  come  of  it  ?  As  yet  a  mere  capability, 
apparently  undetermined,  infinitely  determinable : 
whereunto  shall  it  grow  ?     Will  you  cast  its  horo- 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  381 

scope  ?  Latent  in  that  lump  of  flesli  there  may  be, 
for  aught  we  know,  a  sage  or  a  fool,  a  villain  or  a 
saint.  If  circumstance  makes  the  man,  the  circum- 
stances into  which  he  is  born,  or  those  which  await 
his  after  years,  have  predetermined  or  will  inevit- 
ably determine  him  this  or  that  among  the  wide 
varieties  of  character  which  life  presents.  Know 
the  circumstances,  and  your  horoscope  is  infallible ; 
given  the  accidents,  you  have  the  man. 

But  on  this  supposition  there  is  no  mmi ;  human 
nature  disappears ;  the  individual  is  only  a  topic  of 
fortune,  an  arena  for  the  play  of  chance.  Reason 
revolts  from  such  a  conclusion.  Closer  examina- 
tion will  discern  behind  the  accidents  a  substance, 
a  substantial  being  whom  they  befall ;  will  find 
that  man  is  what  he  is  by  reason  of  something  in 
him,  and  not  altogether  through  what  happens  to 
him ;  that  in  fact  the  idea  in  each  subject  is  the 
more  decisive  factor  in  his  destiny. 

Let  us  trace  the  operation  of  this  interior 
motive. 

And  first,  as  regards  mankind  at  large,  mark 
the  force  of  ideas  as  shown  in  the  phenomena  of 
race.  Observe  how  differently  human  nature  de- 
velops itself  in  the  Aryan,  the  Negro,  the  Malay. 
All  these  partake  of  one  humanity.  The  essential 
attril)utes  of  man  arc  common  to  all.  Why  is  it 
that  only  one  of  these  races  has  made  constant, 


382  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

enduring  progress  in  civilization,  while  the  rest, 
after  reaching  a  certain  stage  of  development,  have 
remained  stationary  or  declined  ?  Why  is  it  that 
the  highest  culture  has  been  attained  by  multitudes 
of  the  one,  and  by  only  here  and  there  an  excep- 
tional individual  in  the  others  ?  Why  has  not  the 
negro  attained  the  same  eminence  and  made  equal 
progress  in  science  and  the  arts  with  the  Euro- 
pean ?  Circumstances  against  him  ?  Because  of 
slavery  ?  How  came  he  to  be  enslaved  ?  It  was 
not  in  him,  and  is  not  in  him,  to  develop  a  com- 
manding civilization  of  his  own. 

Why  is  it  that  the  red  men  who  inhabited  this 
continent  for  unknown  ages  before  the  European 
took  possession  of  it  have  left  such  slight  traces  of 
their  existence  on  the  soil  ?  The  country  was  a 
wilderness  then,  and  would  have  remained  a  wilder- 
ness still,  in  aboriginal  hands.  See  what  a  different 
aspect  it  presents  since  the  Saxons  have  had  pos- 
session of  it.  Here  are  the  same  rivers  and  har- 
bors, the  same  lakes  and  mountains,  which  the 
Indian  knew  and  named.  See  what  has  been  made 
of  them  by  a  different  race !  These  rivers  which 
once  rolled  idly  to  the  main  have  been  made  to 
drive  the  wheel  of  industry,  and  to  bear  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  distant  inland  to  the  coast.  These  har- 
bors are  converted  into  floating  forests,  these  lakes 
are  made  highways  of  traffic,  these  mountains  have 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  883 

been  forced  to  render  np  tlie  secret  riches  of  their 
trust.  Here  the  circumstances  are  the  same,  but 
a  different  idea  supervenes.  To  the  red  man  they 
were  barren ;  given  in  marriage  to  European  ideas 
they  become  prolific  of  endless  use. 

The  preponderance  of  idea  over  accident  in  hu- 
man life  is  seen  in  the  propagation  from  age  to  age 
of  those  physical  and  moral  features  which  charac- 
terize a  particular  nation  or  tribe,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  gypsies,  —  the  immortal  tramps,  —  of  the  Jews 
of  the  Dispersion,  who  have  propagated  through 
two  millenniums  an  inextinguishal)le  type. 

It  is  seen  in  the  persistence  from  generation  to 
generation  of  family  traits,  —  the  Habsburg,  the 
Bourbon,  the  Stuart. 

In  individuals  the  predominant  idea  is  not  so 
conspicuous,  is  not  always  apparent,  for  the  reason 
that  individuals  are  known  to  us  only  as  manifested 
within  the  limits  of  a  single  life-history.  In  in- 
dividuals it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  between 
the  phenomenal  and  the  real,  between  the  historic 
manifestation  and  the  fundamental  type.  Yet  we 
often  hear  it  said  of  this  or  that  individual  that 
Nature  intended  him  to  be  something  different 
from  what  he  has  come  to  be.  It  is  certain  that 
Nature  never  designed  Coelestine  V.  to  be  pope, 
nor  Henry  VI.  of  England  to  be  king.  Heine  says 
of   Robespierre  and  Immanuel  Kant  that  Nature 


384  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

designed  them  to  be  shopkeepers,  to  weigh  coffee 
and  sugar ;  but  Fate  decreed  that  they  should 
weigh  something  else :  that  the  one  should  place  a 
King,  and  the  other  a  God,  in  his  scales. 

Nevertheless,  something  of  the  original  charac- 
ter, the  true  idea  of  the  man,  will  show  itself  be- 
neath the  accidents  of  his  lot.  Cromwell  would 
not  have  been  Lord  Protector  of  England  but  for 
the  maladministration  of  Charles  I.  His  character 
as  history  presents  it  would  have  been  different, 
or  rather  history  would  not  have  presented  it  at 
all,  had  he  never  left,  — 

"  His  private  garden,  where 
He  lived,  reserved  and  austere, 
As  if  his  higliest  plot 
To  plant  the  bergamot." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  only  a  character  such  as 
Cromwell's  was  in  its  native  quality,  could  have 
filled  that  place.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  would  never 
have  been  the  prodigy  he  was,  but  for  the  French 
Revolution,  and  might  have  led  an  unnotorious 
life ;  but  Bonaparte  under  any  circumstances  would 
have  been  an  organizing  and  commanding  power. 

The  "  prohibitionist "  pleads  that  the  dram-shop 
is  the  cause  of  nine  tenths  of  the  crimes  which  deso- 
late society.  The  plea  may  be  valid  in  civic  philos- 
ophy, but  a  searching  psychology  puts  a  different 
interpretation  on  the  facts.     The  dram-shop  is  no 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  S8o 

doubt  the  occasion  of  a  vast  amount  of  criminal 
acts.  The  dram-shop  develops  the  sot,  but  does  not 
make  him.  The  man  who  under  any  conditions 
could  become  a  sot  and,  under  the  stimulus  of  in- 
toxication, commit  murder,  must  have  had  some- 
thing in  the  original  make  of  him,  some  pre-natal 
element  of  weakness  or  wickedness,  which  pre- 
disposed him  to  be  the  victim  of  temptation.  The 
overt  act,  the  sinful  growth,  may  be  the  result  of 
accident ;  the  essential  nature  never.  The  charac- 
ter which  the  w^orld  sees  and  judges,  rewards  or 
punishes,  may  be  very  different  from  the  real  typi- 
cal character,  the  underlying  nature,  which  the 
world  knows  not,  which,  it  may  be,  the  individual 
himself  knows  not,  but  which  carries  the  secret  of 
his  final  destiny. 

Conceding  to  external  conditions  all  that  can 
fairly  be  claimed  for  them,  there '  is  yet  in  the 
bosom  of  every  man  a  force  which  transcends  them 
all.  No  power  which  is  brought  to  bear  upon  him 
from  without  can  finally  countervail  the  original 
intent  of  the  unfathomable  soul.  The  difference 
between  characters  which  we  call  original  and 
those  which  we  deem  common-place  is  perhaps  but 
a  difference  of  more  or  less  activity  of  tempera- 
ment. In  the  one  case  the  originality  finds  ex- 
pression," in  the  other  it  is  latent.  But,  at  bottom, 
every  man  is  original ;   there  is  more  of  our  own 

25 


386  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

than  of  all  other  men  in  every  one  of  us.  Much  of 
what  we  seem  to  be,  our  culture,  our  behavior,  is 
only  costume.  We  are  clothed  upon  by  tradition 
and  custom  and  example ;  but  pierce  these  wrappers, 
and  you  find  an  original  nature  which  these  may 
mask,  but  not  efface.  When  we  look  from  a  dis- 
tance on  a  well-drilled  company  of  soldiers  on  par- 
ade, they  seem  as  one  man, —  dress,  movement, 
gesture,  all  agreeing.  But  draw  nearer ;  go  through 
the  ranks  ;  question  this  and  that  bayonet ;  and  you 
will  find  that  each  is  a  world  by  himself,  differing, 
it  may  be,  as  widely  from  his  fellow  as  if  they  in- 
habited different  spheres.  Each  has  his  own  pecu- 
liar experience,  his  joys  and  his  woes.  Heaven 
and  Hell  may  march  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  one 
platoon.  So  in  the  grand  parade  of  life.  Fashion 
dresses  us  in  regimentals,  class  and  calling  range 
us  in  platoons,  politics  and  religion  marshal  us  in 
battle  array  ;  we  fight  under  given  standards,  we 
practise  the  same  manoeuvres,  we  march  and  mess 
together.  Society  seems  to  be  an  army  of  puppets 
moved  and  directed  by  a  few  leading  minds.  Nev- 
ertheless each  member  of  each  company  is  fighting 
on  his  own  hook ;  each  has  a  discipline  of  his  own 
besides  the  manual  exercise  of  his  corps ;  each  has 
his  own  battle  besides  the  general  melee  ;  each  has 
liis  private  victory  or  defeat  besides  the  common 
gain  or  loss.    We  are  all  more  or  less  the  creatures 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  387 

of  our  time ;  but  John  is  still  John,  and  Peter  is 
Peter  :  all  the  discipline  of  church  and  state,  and 
all  the  drill  of  custom,  will  not  efface  the  inborn 
johnneity  and  petriety. 

"  You  are  proud  of  your  ancestors,"  said  Mira- 
beau  to  one  of  the  noblesse ;  "  I  too  am  an  ances- 
tor." Every  man  is  his  own  ancestor,  and  every 
man  is  his  own  heir.  He  devises  his  own  future, 
and  he  inherits  his  own  past.  All  else  that  per- 
tains to  us,  all  wherewith  accident  overlays  us,  be 
it  good  or  evil,  we  shall  finally  outgrow  and  leave 
behind.  The  underlying  idea  in  us  accident  can- 
not change.  As  the  river  receives  upon  its  bosom 
sun  and  shade,  and  melts  into  itself  the  winter's 
snow,  and  floats  or  absorbs,  or  deposits  in  its  bed 
whatever  is  committed  to  its  waves;  and  whether 
it  winds  through  civil  fields  or  waters  the  roots  of 
primeval  forests,  is  still  the  same  river,  replen- 
ished from  the  same  fountain,  pursuing  in  dark- 
ness and  in  light  its  predestined  course,  —  so  the 
individual  character  as  shaped  from  within,  more 
potent  than  all  the  influences  that  pour  into  it, 
more  prevailing  than  all  the  accidents  it  encoun- 
ters, resolves  at  last  all  accident  and  influence  into 
itself,  and  still  over  all  that  comes  in  contact  with 
it  will  finally  assert  its  own. 

"Nor  time  nor  force  that  inwrought  type  can  sever 
Which  through  thy  life  unfolds  itself  forever." 


388  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

And  so  to  every  man  at  birth  is  allotted  an 
estate  of  unknown  extent  and  inexhaustible  ca- 
pacity. Go  where  we  will,  in  all  our  journeyings 
we  can  never  out-travel  the  limits  of  that  domain; 
happen  what  may  in  the  unforeseeable  future,  there 
can  come  to  us  nothing  from  abroad  so  effective 
for  good  or  ill  as  that  which  we  grow  by  the  action 
of  our  own  wills  on  native  ground. 

This  view  of  human  destiny  concerns  not  merely 
the  few  years  of  our  mortality ;  its  import  reaches 
behind  and  beyond  this  present  life. 

I  have  said  that  all  that  is  cons:enital  in  us 
constitutes  our  proper  type.  Whence  that  type  ? 
Evidently  it  must  be  the  result  of  ante-natal  con- 
ditions acting  on  a  pre-existing  soul.  And  so  I 
infer  that  earthly  experiences  acting  on  the  soul 
in  this  present  life  will  modify  and  I'einforce  its 
distinctive  immortal  type. 

The  question  of  immortality  as  commonly  ap- 
prehended is  confused  by  want  of  precise  defini- 
tion. In  this  compound  being  what  is  it  that 
survives  the  event  of  death  ?  We  need  to  distin- 
guish between  the  person  and  the  self.  To  vulgar 
apprehension  they  are  one  and  inseparable.  The 
prevailing  opinion  supposes  a  personal  immortality; 
it  supposes  an  unbroken  thread  of  consciousness 
which  shall  carry  over  the  remembered  experiences 


THE  LORDS   OF  LIFE.  889 

of  this  life  into  the  one  which  succeeds,  so  that 
Quidam  in  all  future  states  of  existence  shall 
recollect  himself  as  the  Quidam  of  this.  It  re- 
gards such  recollection  as  constituting  the  very 
essence  of  immortality.  A  sufficient  refutation 
of  this  delusion  is  the  fact  that  we  do  not  in  this 
life  recall  a  previous  existence,  which  nevertheless 
the  soul  must  have  had ;  for  who  that  deeply  pon- 
ders the  matter  can  believe  that  the  soul  which 
is  born  into  this  life  is  a  new  creation  ? 

The  person  is  one,  the  individual,  the  true  self, 
is  another.  The  person  is  a  mask  which,  with  all 
its  belongings,  dissolves  at  death,  or  only  survives 
for  a  while  as  a  dream  of  the  past;  the  self  is 
immortal.^ 

Immortal,  also,  is  that  which  Buddhism  terms 
the  "  Karma,"  the  sum  of  our  doing,  the  character 
we  enact,  the  thread  which  we  spin  by  the  action 
of  our  will  while  lodged  in  the  flesh.  This  con- 
stitutes a  string  of  causes  and  effects,  which  again 
are  causes,  without  end. 

In  this  "Karma"  we  have  another  of  the  Lords 
of  Life.  Its  sway  extends  beyond  the  person ;  it 
operates  for  good  or  evil  in  the  world  we  leave 
behind ;  it  reacts  on  the  ego  of  a  new  birth,  and 
affects  our  destiny  for  indefinite  time. 

1  "Though  personaUties  ever  shift,  the  one  line  of  life,  on  which 
they  are  strung  like  beads,  runs  on  unbroken."  —  Esoteric  Buddh- 
ism, p.  69. 


390  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

To  sum  up  all  in  a  word,  —  character  is  destiny. 
Accidents  vanish ;  the  idea  remains.  New  spheres 
will  supply  new  accidents  and  develop  new  persons 
in  the  ever  new-flowering,  imperishable  Self.  This 
aboriginal  Self,  the  subject-bearer  of  the  idea,  sur- 
vives with  the  character  it  has  wrought  for  itself 
from  the  discipline  of  countless  lives.  All  else  is 
"fallings  from  us,  vanishings," 


University  Press :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

JChis  bppk  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
iKt  .  i5n  the^date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

IViMh  1 V   l^bl 


i^'    REC'D  LD 


1 '?_ 


SEP  1 9  1963  1 


^ 


^ 


i 


— tu 


JUL 


W 


iWl 


LD 


LD  21A-50»i-12,'60 
(B6221sl0)476B 


i60P 


.D 


356 


E?55 


)0 


General  Library  11 J  C 

University  of  California        . -. 

Berkeley 


I  LJ     £-C.  /   /^ 


Jlf/   X/, 


l^r^4l 


X^^LJFORNlf^^^       H   '+ 


'JN. 


GEN£B/ILLIBBflBy.u.C.  BERKELEY 


Boooas'joii 


